Humans are social creatures; this is how we were able to dominate other species and build the world we live in today.  Making connections and learning from one another is how we grow.  Applying and incorporating this knowledge into our personal lives is how we continue to make progress reaching higher personal achievements.  We don’t adapt at the same rate for various reasons – including ignoring solutions for improvement and resistance to change.  Unknowingly this behavior eventually leads to dependency on external things and people for our progress and growth in life.

Reliance on others vs. Self-Reliance

Relying on external things and people to improve our lives effectively gives the thing or person control over our life and our happiness!  If our happiness is solely determined by some external factor or person then they can also determine when we are sad, depressed, regretful or moody.  Eventually realizing we are not in control over our lives and emotions as we thought, we become angry, bitter or resentful.

Self-Reliance is defined as “reliance on one’s own power and resources rather than those of others.”  in his essay, “Self-Reliance,” philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson argues that polite society has an adverse effect on one’s personal growth. Self-sufficiency, he writes, gives one the freedom to discover one’s true self and attain true independence.”

We all can think of a time when we made a decision that benefited someone else or the group as a whole but we ourselves were not in total agreement.  It’s not until we reflect on our circumstances or where we are in life that we conclude the decision we made in the past was not in our best interest.  To be altruistic, which is putting another’s or a groups’ self interest above your own, is not a bad thing.  Altruism can bring both joy and pain

Freedom of Expression

For example: If you took a happy friendly dog and put him in a cage all year long, only feeding him to keep him alive, the dog will become unfriendly, depressed and possibly aggressive.  Taking not only the dog’s freedom and freedom of expression away from him puts him in a state that is counter to what he is. Dogs love to roam and explore and can be extremely friendly – this is their nature. They don’t call them man’s best friend for nothing.

We are not dogs.  We react however, like the caged dog when we allow things and people to put us in a cage taking away our freedom and freedom of expression.  Like the nature of the dog, we humans love companionship, are friendly and enjoy roaming and exploring new things – this is our nature. What’s encouraging to know is the fact that what distinguishes us from a dog or any animal is that we have the power to use our mind to effectively change our environments and circumstances.

Using Mindfulness

Activating the power of our mind allows us to develop strategies which we can use to change our situations in life.  This is called using mindfulness. Through mindfulness we can slow the world down to evaluate what is going on in our lives and our environment.  This evaluation gives us direction which we can take action to change or improve the things we are not satisfied with.  When we take action, we effectively take control over our lives and freedom which ultimately improves our happiness.

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