Self-Reliance Virtues

14 virtues to practice

1. 01

   Integrity

   —

   Keep a considered principle when abandoning it would win approval.

2. 02

   Discernment

   —

   Weigh advice against reasons and the actual situation.

3. 03

   Prudence

   —

   Check consequences and limits before committing to a plan.

4. 04

   Humility

   —

   Acknowledge the help and knowledge your work depends on.

5. 05

   Diligence

   —

   Give necessary work care, including its unshowy parts.

6. 06

   Temperance

   —

   Let convenience serve your purpose without taking over.

7. 07

   Courage

   —

   Make a defensible choice without waiting for universal approval.

8. 08

   Patience

   —

   Give learning its time without demanding immediate mastery.

9. 09

   Self-Respect

   —

   Let your dignity shape the terms of your participation.

10. 10

    Curiosity

    —

    Ask how familiar things work, and pursue understanding.

11. 11

    Self-Command

    —

    Pause before letting a defensive impulse choose your reply.

12. 12

    Fortitude

    —

    Bear the cost of a principled choice without feeding resentment.

13. 13

    Honesty

    —

    Describe what you can do without hiding its limits.

14. 14

    Frugality

    —

    Care for what serves you, and use resources thoughtfully.

Your judgment, your responsibilities, and room for help

Courage makes a defensible choice possible before universal approval arrives. Integrity keeps a considered principle when a private exception would flatter you. Fortitude bears the continuing cost of the choice without making others responsible for your burden. Together they give independent judgment a life beyond the moment of deciding.

Discernment tests the reasons for advice and your own first impression. Prudence considers consequences and preparation. Curiosity seeks understanding; Humility makes correction and instruction possible. Self-trust becomes more substantial when it includes the ability to learn.

Diligence carries ordinary work through. Patience gives skill time to develop. Frugality maintains what serves your purposes, while Temperance stops the search for convenience or the perfect option from taking over the day. Managing your own affairs includes these unshowy acts of competence.

Honesty gives an accurate account of what you can do. Self-Respect lets your preferences and judgments have a place among others. Self-Command gives you room to choose your response rather than obeying the first defensive impulse. Receiving advice or help can be one of those choices.

Emerson’s essay Self-Reliance gives a forceful voice to self-trust and independence from public approval. These pages take up the question in ordinary life: what do you have reason to choose, and will you act on that judgment? Your answer can change when you learn more.

What these virtues make possible

Self-reliance can make your decisions more deliberate and your abilities more usable. You can begin without a group vote, revise without surrendering your judgment and finish work whose reward is the thing accomplished. You may also discover that a task needs another person’s knowledge. The point is to take responsibility for how you proceed.

Self-Reliance Virtues in ordinary life

Before the verdicts

Form your own view of a book or an ordinary option, then compare the reasons others offer. Neither agreement nor disagreement needs to be automatic.

An affair of your own

Organize a bill record, read an ordinary agreement before accepting it, or complete a task you keep putting off. Understanding what you are taking on is part of taking charge.

A skill worth acquiring

Learn to mend a loose button or use a simple tool appropriately. Give the learning enough attention to produce a useful result of your own.

The unapproved choice

Choose a course or project for a reason you can explain, even when friends prefer another. Their different choice can remain reasonable too.

Related collections

Friend Virtues explores mutual companionship, while Slow Life Virtues considers a fitting pace. Self-Reliance Virtues focuses on responsibility for your own choices, including the decision to seek help.

Choose a situation from your week

Take an ordinary decision from first judgment to an actual step: choose a purpose, examine the reasons, act and learn from the result. The fourteen-virtue program gives each virtue a week and repeats the sequence across four cycles, for fifty-six weeks. You can adapt the collection in My Virtues or simply read.

One cycle takes 14 weeks; four cycles take 56 weeks. My Virtues may contain any nonempty eligible selection.

Questions worth returning to

• What do I have reason to choose before I ask what will be admired?

• What useful thing could I learn to do for myself?

• Which part of this choice remains mine to carry through?

Take one useful question with you

Read at your own pace, follow the fourteen-week cycle, or make a selection in My Virtues. You can begin with one ordinary choice.