However Mean Your Life, Meet It and Live It

answered by Thoreau, "Walden"

1854년 출판, 19세기 미국

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Breaking Away (1979)

dir. Peter Yates · USA

In a small town where college is taken for granted, a quarry worker's son pours his heart into bicycle racing alone. Before the wall of class and his parents' expectations, he refuses to give up what he loves.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Between the path my parents want and what I love, which must I choose?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.

💡 TL;DR

Thoreau said that however mean your life is, you should meet it and live it, not shun it.

📝The Classic Answers

Thoreau said that however mean your life is, you should meet it and live it, not shun it. In a town where going to college is assumed to be the only path, a young man who pours his whole heart into a bicycle may look like he is living a mean life. But he never calls that life by a shameful name; he meets it head-on and lives it. When what parents envision as success differs from what one loves, living out that difference without running from it is real courage. Before a choice that looks mean or small, I ask myself whether I have the courage to meet it head-on rather than flee.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If a choice today feels mean or small enough to be ashamed of, meet it head-on instead.

📖 Classic Source: Thoreau, "Walden". Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.