Hi everyone! My name is Akrita Lungani. I’m a sophomore at Baruch, and I am majoring in Finance. I love to travel and I’m passionate about drawing.

Kant makes it clear that the key to enlightenment within oneself is the ability to end reliance on any outside forces for happiness. When you are enlightened, you don’t need anyone to give you self confidence—it’s present within you. He states that the enlightened man reaches this state as he lets go of immaturity, in which immaturity is defined as “lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another.” (Kant 1) Immaturity doesn’t originate from the lack of understanding—rather it comes from the lack of courage without encouragement. Once we learn to have faith in ourselves and live the way we please, we are bound to reach contentment. We reach this state of being content with ourselves once we stop looking for approval from others and embrace our own qualities, whether they’re deemed as acceptable by society or not.

Kant believes that people aren’t often motivated to be in charge of themselves, and that “It is so convenient to be immature!” (Kant 1) However, enlightenment is hard to achieve due to “laziness and cowardice.” (Kant 1) Humans are constantly running from their problems. Humans see independence as an obstacle—something to be cautious of. However if they didn’t shy away from this fear, they would be able to achieve enlightenment quite easily. People feel as though their actions need to have reasons that are understood by society, however reasoning our actions are what hinder us from enlightenment. Letting go of reasoning and justifying each action can easily steer one towards self enlightenment, however since childhood, people are conditioned to think that obedience leads to success, and that it’s vital for humans to overthink their actions in order to foresee the best result. However, the best result is never guaranteed—living life as a prisoner to a favorable outcome is ultimate cowardice.

I believe that Kant’s definition of enlightenment is correct. Humans constantly are seeking approval from others, and basing their confidences on the rest of society’s reactions. Self confidence is what allows us to be happy within ourselves, and those who lack it are often left debilitated. Without confidence, humans are constantly looking for approval from others in order to give them a temporary self of importance and belonging. I believe that Kant’s theory of enlightenment is essentially just about confidence. However, in today’s day and age, there are so many expectations about how one must look and act within society. With such a high rate of depression and self harm, it’s clear that too many people feel as though they don’t fall into society’s expectations, and they end up feeling lost.