The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

March 13Duty Bound

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson—Self-Reliance (1841)

Duty is a word often used to entrap people into doing the work that others think should be done. Your only duty as a self-reliant entrepreneur is to do what you must do.

A phrase like this one, attributed to Robert E. Lee—“Do your duty, you cannot do more; you should never wish to do less”—can be applied as metaphorical shackles to keep people from striving for something that only they understand.

You can and should do your duty—that's not a bad word, but you get to define what your duty is.

Serving others through your entrepreneurial vision may be your duty, but so too may your greatness reside in tending to your own personal growth and health.

Raising two kids and paying a mortgage is a huge obligation and loving duty, but it may not be the complete duty. What you are committed to do can make room for what else you must do.

Challenge Question

1. What sense of duty is keeping you from chasing what you know you must do?