Why is being independent so important? And by independent, I do not mean only financial independence but independence in all aspects. Since our childhood, we have been guided to go to school, score good marks, do our graduation and get a job so that we can be independent. But is that all about being independent? The answer is NO.
Being independent means not depending on anyone for anything, be it your finances, your happiness or any other thing.
Ask yourself this Question…
Just for a moment, forget about your work, your family, your friends and everything around you. Just imagine it’s only you and ask yourself “Am I independent enough to live my life happily?”
For most of the people, the answer would be NO. And it is because we have been dependent on some or the other person for some little or big things. We are dependent on our family and friends for our happiness. We expect them to make us happy when we are going through a rough phase in life, we feel lonely, and we just want someone to talk to us or hangout with us. But over a period of time, it becomes a habit which makes you weak without your knowledge.
The weaker you become, more dependency you seek. Next time again when we feel lonely, sad or anxious, we’ll seek the same method to feel better because that is how our brain works.
Let’s say, for some people, smoking makes them calm down, for some, alcohol makes them feel better. If something made us feel better, our brain starts seeking it again and that is how we develop habits. And if we continue doing that, we become dependent on others to handle some of our own difficult situations. We become emotionally dependent on our partners, family or friends without even acknowledging it and there comes a time when we would become so weak and dependent that we can’t be happy if they aren’t around which may sometimes also lead to depression, constant sadness or losing respect for self.
Most of the times we are dependent on others either financially or emotionally. But do we really need to be? Are we not capable of earning a living? Can we not make ourselves happy?
Yes, we can earn a living if we work for it. We can make ourselves happy if we do things which would bring happiness to us and others too.
How do we fix this…
So now that we know, dependency makes us weaker, and, being weak makes us more dependent, we need to get out of this vicious loop.
I’m not saying that we should not have family and friends to support us in bad times and enjoy the good times with us. It is totally okay to seek help or support whenever needed but we should not make it a habit to seek help even when we can manage on our own. Despite knowing the fact that people who love us will always be there, we should not create any dependencies on them.
Little do we know about the difference between help and dependency. You can seek help once, but not every time you are stuck in a similar situation. And we become aware of this difference only when we respect ourselves enough to know that, there’s nothing on this planet that we can’t do only if we try a bit more harder.So if you are already stuck in this situation or beginning to be in that situation, just be aware when you are being dependent and ask yourself if you can sort it on your own, and, you’ll get a YES, most of the times. And once you feel you can do it, just start doing it by yourself.
It is all about developing habits. Just like we develop habit of being dependent because it seems easier, we can develop the habit of being independent starting from the little things, and it will eventually diminish the dependency habit which surprisingly is much easier than you think. Let’s take a small example, you expect your mom to bring you food everyday. Can you not go to kitchen and get your own food? You can if you are physically fit. If you start doing it every day, you develop a habit of getting your food by yourself and you can develop this habit in most of the situations.
No matter what the situation is in our lives, we all want to be respected and appreciated. But we forget that we respect those who respect themselves and in order to gain that respect, we simply have to be dignified enough to be independent in everything, everywhere.
And once you become solely independent, you have full control of your life and then there’s nothing in this world you will fear.
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