TOW: Self-Reliance

Lately, I have been feeling good.  Which is a nice, pleasant change from feeling stressed about the future, and finances, and jobs, and sleep, and friends, and haunting items from the past that always seems to follow mearound when I least expect them.  (And for some reason, the past always seems to show up in my life when I least expect it.  Sort of like the leftovers in the back of your fridge that have been there, forgotten, for three weeks.)

The tough thing about being grown-up, really grown-up, is the idea of self-reliance, being able to be stable no matter what happens.  Self-reliance, to me, means being able to adjust to new hardships being able to spend quality time with yourself, and really love being with you, even when you screw up.  It means accepting who you are, with or without all the things people tell you are valuable to have and cherish in this lifetime. 

As people grow older, there are fewer relationships maintained in your adult life.  This happens because a) people start getting married b) people move away c) people start dying.  And all of those options can make life more difficult and change your world of relationships and social happiness.  As an adult, you become accustomed to people changing, and changing in big ways.  And those changes aren't just changes for them, they are changes for you, as well.  Your social web can change you if you're not careful.

Rely on yourself.  Be your own pillar of strength.  Never rely on anyone, never trust anyone more than yourself.  You will always be putting your own self-value at risk.  I speak from personal experience...I have spent the last couple years thinking that being in Canada means that I can rely on people in a different way than when I lived in Belgium.  What I have realized, more than anything, is that I had more the right idea there, than here.  It always felt good to be able to do things for myself, by myself.  It feels good to do those things, so it shouldn't make you, or me, ever feel lonely or isolated.  Life is meant to be lived alone.  You share your life, but only you life your life.

Self-reliance means knnowng that if the entire world crumbles, you won't crumble with it. And, there are times in life when we feel on top of the world, and there are times when we're down in the lowest valley of our lives.  But our goodness, our strength isn't how much we prove to others how successful we are, or how much we follow other people's ideas about how we live our lives, but it's about how much we live in the way we were mean to live.  Living well.

And that means believing in ourselves, first.  More than anything.