Carry It Forward: Letters to a Young Poet

Although Letters to a Young Poet was a quick and easy read that would take anyone about an hour to read, I actually took my time reading it and finished it over the course of a few days. My intention wasn't to do, but the more I read, the more I found myself thinking about Rilke's statement on solitude. Throughout the whole book, he encourages Kappus to live his life in solitude and rely only on himself. Rilke claims that the only way in which someone can get to become to a great poet (or a great anything for that matter) is by being in solitude and being introspective. He says that if you remain in solitude, you will have time to explore your most inner feeling and experiences and interpret them for what they actually mean. By doing this, one will know exactly who they are what their experiences have done for them and they will subconsciously transfer something meaningful into whatever work they are doing (in Kappus's case poetry).
To me personally, this is really interesting because it made me realize that I live my life by the opposite manner of what Rilke is encouraging people to do. Instead of spending my life in solitude and looking for answers within my own mind, I depend on other people for answer. I depend on my teachers, family and friends to provide me with comfort, security, knowledge and happiness. It's not necessarily that I don't spend time alone, it's just that in a society like this, where there is constant interaction with other people, it's hard for someone like me to live in comeplete solitude. It's hard for me to solve everything on my own because (in my opinion) i'm not mature enough and I still need some guidance in my life. In the future however, perhaps one day when I feel ready to take on the challenge of living a life where I comfort myself and am happy by simply being with myself and enjoying myself. Life is full of tragedies and i've learned that sometimes you just simply can't trust other people. I hope that by attempting to live my life in solitude in the future it will make me trust myself and truly understand the reason for my being and from this interpretation be able to live a happy life devoted to me, myself and I.