self reliance

when I was eight I read emersons essay on self reliance and it rewired my brain forever. It was then I figured out that I would never let another entity be it a parent a government or a friend figure out for me what was best for me. When I die I will have my boots on and they will have been sewed and cobbled by me and they will be worn and tattered. The only thing I am sure of is that one day they put you in a box in the ground. Until then I will live my own way regardless of how maddening it is to those around me. All around me are the spoonfed masses who have chosen a life path hewn out by the hands of another or (even worse) by the boney hand of fear. Often, a well meaning parent can send you down a path to ruin as midway one realizes it was not your own choice and it is too late to turn around. In freudian terms the parent must be defeated in order to become a hero. The umbilical cord is the most dangerous of nooses. You can be 40 and still tangled in the psychic web of controlling parents and if you are, then god bless you.