Today, more than ever, the call for dependence is strong. Millions have sailed to its evil Sirens' call, towards shipwreck and ruin. Lured ever closer to bondage by offerings of free handouts for obedience. If you are smart you will plug your ears and not fall for this fatal song.
Independence is when a person is self-sufficient in that you don’t consume what you haven't worked for. This means you have produced it directly –for instance, farming for your food, or indirectly --by creating something that someone else wants. To be dependent is when a person requires the efforts of another to survive, like charity or favors, and in the worst case, theft in the form of stealing or indirect theft by government handouts.
There is nothing more important than your independence, it is the primary requirement for true happiness and to live your life the way you wish. Authoritarians all over the planet are determined to produce and foster a society of dependent bodies, trusting of the hand that feeds, obedient, trained just enough to perform their job, but scared more than anything else of being free and independent.
I have written five characteristics of an independent person, but this is not an exhaustive list. I challenge you to become more independent and to teach others to live in a more self-supporting way.
-Independent people are more ambitious
“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.”- Ayn Rand
Having a high degree of ambition means to also have the strength to shape that ambition so that it matches our vision, it becomes our goal. Just because something has never been done before, doesn’t mean it cannot be done. So we will expand ourselves to fit the size of our ambition. When we reach our goal, it doesn’t take long before we find a new height to strive to.
It is important to note that ambition is not greed, it just so happens that wealth often comes to the ambitious. Greed is tangible, an object of desire. Ambition is not, and much more than that, it allows us to flourish, and it shows others that anything can be done.
The dependent person who lacks ambition will blame other people and say the reason they don’t get anywhere in life is because ‘life is unfair’.
-Independent people are more confident
Many times we won’t know that we are good at something until we try it out, and independent people are the first to try new things outside our comfort zone. These experiences benefit us because we realize we are just fine even if we fail, indeed, we can learn more about ourselves from those failures than we would have if we succeeded the first time.
In addition, confident people do not get worked up from criticisms and judgements because we have more faith in our abilities and strengths, a greater belief that we can succeed at something.
-Independent people make better choices
Decision making is a much easier process for an independent person because we don’t need to consult the feelings of every single person that could possibly ever be affected by this decision. We do what we think is the best choice and we stick to that decision.
We collect our news and information from many different sources, not just the easiest. We are open to hearing both sides of the story, but we don’t let other people tell us how to think. We don't believe something just because the majority is telling us that it is. We never stop searching for answers because we know there is always more to learn and we avoid trends that we see as petty or faddish.
-Independent people strive to improve
Not wanting to rely on others for everything creates a need to be the best we can be. To achieve this, independent people are constantly reading, learning, and practicing ways to bring out the best in ourselves. In the end, if you don’t believe in yourself, you cannot be independent.
-Independent people are more successful
When an independent person finds an idea to be worth pursuing it is rare that we give it up. We continue on the path that they believe will lead us to completing that idea, even in the face of adversity. If the path proves to be false, we find another way to complete our goals. We know the most intelligent, the most skillful, or the best looking people aren’t often the most successful because they lack 100% motivation. We definitely know other people will never care about our success more than we do.
This doesn’t mean that we work alone, everyone needs additional help sometime. Working with other goal oriented people can exponentially speed up you achieving your own goal. What is a group but a gathering of individuals? But in that group it is important that you choose people that are independent and aligned with your goal, this turns your group into a team.
They don’t have to be the kind of extraordinary people to who never make mistakes. On the contrary, they should be the people who are not afraid of making mistakes and so they do make them, but are able to shake it off and press on.
Being independent is not easy, but the benefit of self-reliance and making your own choices are worth every bit of it, every time. Don't become another shipwreck for them to feed upon.
The toughest part of being independent is learning that sometimes, you do accept help.. in fact need it. I've more than once stubbornly refused help because I felt my independence threatened, only to find that I caused myself a lot more stress by not accepting the favour now and returning it when the opportunity arose.
Very true. If you wrote an article on that experience and posted it on Steemit, I feel it would do very well. It definitely could teach people something worthwhile. Thanks for reading!