Dependent

As an only child, I’m familiar with being alone, naturally. I find a lot of peace in the quietness of my presence. I can and will retreat to myself for comfort and compassion. Even when it's tumultuous, my stream of consciousness keeps me company day in and day out. Life can be chaotic, yet I always have a home to return to within myself. I wish I could say I was always this in tune with myself, but then I would be lying. As you know, I am many things but a liar is not one of them.

Truthfully, I’ve found such little success attaching myself to another. Over the years, when I would feel a strong desire to do something: have a treat-yourself kind of day, consistently go to the gym, and so on I would look to another person to help me. It makes sense, right? I want to go to the gym four times a week, so a friend and I will push each other to go. I force myself to get up because another person is relying on me in the same way I’m depending on them. However, if you’ve gone down this road before, then you know where the issue in this kind of partnership lies. As soon as person A decides to skip the gym one day, person B will agree to miss their workout, as well. My reliance on the mutual agreement with my friend overshadows discipline and personal drive to work out. Maybe the gym example isn’t your cup of tea. So, how about this? I want to go to the movies, but all of my friends are busy or have already seen the movie I want to watch. There’s a concert I want to go to but can’t find anyone to go with me, so I skip it. A place I want to visit, but I’m too nervous to step out of my comfort zone and go at it alone.

Too many times I’ve waited for others to find equal joy and excitement in the things that I want to do. So many times, in fact, I’ve lost out on potential memories that would have brought me deep satisfaction. Lost memories all because I longed - needed - for others to join me.

Although, these are all arbitrary examples because you can find success with another person in all of these scenarios. Perhaps, you have a gym pal that you consistently go with and that system works well for you. Or, a friend that will get an AMC membership with you and go to any and every movie with you. You get the gist.

Where this mindset becomes dangerous, for me, is in those moments I greatly relied on others to get me through deeply bleak times. I would seek solace from those around me as a distraction. I couldn’t “fix” myself so I needed to be consumed by anything and everything else. Every waking moment was devoted to someone else’s issues or drowning myself in work and activities. I forced myself to get so far out of my head that I lost my internal balance. I couldn’t confront my problems. Rather, every issue and negative emotion became an amalgamation of bad feelings and impending doom. I couldn’t see myself clearly or the situations I was getting entrapped in. Reliance on others rather than self-reliance led me to stray from my journey of self-healing and peace.

To note: fix is in quotes because I no longer view myself as something helpless and hopeless - thankfully.

Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with leaning on others - I think it’s encouraged. Hyper-independence does no one any good, of course. Like anything in life, the balance of independence and healthy interpersonal relationships is vital. However, where I’m going with this is that we have only ourselves from birth until the end of our lives. We know ourselves so intimately, and in a way, others will never be able to truly understand.

So, why lean on another when you can lean on yourself?

Sincerely,

Shresta