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Title: Trust Yourself
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Language: en
Topics: adolescence, the youth, appeal
Source: Original text from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10606, 2021.  Translated from Russian by Wikisource.

Leo Tolstoy

Trust Yourself

Trust yourself, growing out of childhood young people when your souls

for the first time raise questions: who am I, why I live, and why all

surrounding me people live? And the most concerning question – whether I

live properly and so do all people surrounding me? Trust yourself even

when those answers which will come to you will disagree with those

instilled in you from childhood, will disagree with the life you live

together with others surrounding you. Don’t be afraid of the

disagreement; on the contrary, know that this disagreement with all

surrounding reflects the best that is in you, the divine principle, the

manifestation of which in life is not only the main, but the only

purpose of our existence. Then believe not in yourself, or famous

personality: Ivan, Pete, Lisa, Masha, son, daughter of a King, minister

or worker, merchant or farmer, but that eternal, reasoning and virtuous

beginning that lives in each of us and which for the first time woke up

in you and asked you these the most critical in the world questions and

looks for and requires their resolution. Then don’t believe people who

with an indulgent smile will tell you that they once searched for the

answers to these questions, but did not find, because one cannot find

solutions other than those accepted by all.

Do not believe this, but trust only yourself, and don’t be afraid to

disagree with the views and thoughts of people surrounding you, – if

only your answers disagreeing with them are not based on your personal

desires but on the desire to fulfill the requirement of that life,

fulfill the will of that force which sent you in this life. Believe

yourself, especially when the answers coming to you are confirmed by

those eternal creation of human wisdom, which is expressed in all

religious teachings and the closest to you – the teaching of Christ in

its highest spiritual meaning.

I remember when I was 15 years old, outliving that time when suddenly I

awoke from child obedience to views of others, in which he lived before,

and for the first time realized that I need to live by yourself, to

choose my own path, take responsibility for my own live before that

Source which gave me it. Remember that back then that I albeit vaguely

but deeply felt that the main purpose of my life is to be good, in

evangelic sense, in sense of selflessness and love. I remember that I

tried to live that way but it did not last for long. I didn’t trust

myself but believed all that impressive, cocky, triumphant acumen which

was enforced on me consciously and subconsciously by all surroundings.

And my first awakening has shifted to very specific albeit diverse

wishes for success in front of people, fame, intellect, wealth,

strength, – that is who not I myself but people considered valuable.

I didn’t believe myself back then, and only after many decades spent on

achieving worldly goals which I either did not reach or achieved but saw

their futility, vanity, and often their harm, I realized that that

meaning which I knew 60 years ago and did not believe then, can and must

be the only reasonable goal of every human being.

And what other, more joyful for myself and more useful to people my life

could become, if I had trusted the voice of the truth, God, for the

first time spoken in me, not yet subjected to temptations of my soul, if

I would believe that voice and gave in to it?

Yes, dear young men, sincerely, independently, not influenced by

external suggestions, but independently and sincerely awakened to the

consciousness of the importance of your life, yes, don’t believe the

people who tell you that your motivations are only unreachable dreams of

youth, that they also dreamed and strove for, but the life soon showed

them that it has its own demands and that we should not fantasize about

what our life could be, and instead try our best to align our actions

with the life of the existing society and try only to be a useful member

of this society.

Also do not believe that especially established in our time dangerous

temptation consisting in belief that the highest human purpose is to

assist the redevelopment of existing in a certain location and certain

time society, using for this purpose all means, even that which

contradict to moral principles. Don’t believe this; the purpose of this

worthless in comparison to the purpose of manifestation in yourself that

divine Source that is imprinted in your soul. And the purpose is false

if it allows deviation from the Source of goodness imprinted in your

soul.

Don’t believe this. Don’t believe that realization of goodness and truth

are impossible in your soul. Achieving of goodness and truth is not only

not impossible in your soul, but the entire life of yours, and of all

people, is only in this, and only this realization in every person leads

not only to a better society, but also to all that welfare of humanity,

which assists it and which is fulfilled only by personal efforts of each

individual.

Yes, trust yourself when your soul will not desire to outdo others,

distinguish yourself from others, be powerful, famous, to be a savior of

the people, rescuer from wrong order of life (such desires often

substitute the desire for goodness), and trust yourself when the main

desire of your soul is to be better – I won’t tell: to improve, because

in self-improvement is something egotistical, satisfying pride, – but

I’ll say: to become that what God who gave us life wants, to open in

yourself that beginning, alike Him, which is engraved in us, to live

godly, as people say.

Trust yourself and live to put all your strengths into one purpose: to

manifest God in yourself, – and you’ll achieve everything you can do and

for their own benefit and for the benefit of the whole world.