We call a person independent when they ask little of the world. Everyone agrees independence is a good thing, and plenty of people aspire to it — parents especially, who hope their children will grow up to stand on their own.
I wouldn’t claim to be an exceptionally independent person, but I ask for far less than I used to, so I’d say I’m reasonably independent. In daily life, it shows in being able to manage my own food, clothes, housing, and getting around. Financially, it shows in my savings covering my everyday expenses. Emotionally, it shows in being able to think most problems through on my own, and to find my own way out of the dark stretches.
But after sitting with it for a while, I realized that independence is really a personality forged by necessity. If someone looked after me in every way and met my every need, I would no longer be independent in daily life. If someone kept an endless stream of money flowing my way, I would no longer be financially independent. And if someone were always there at exactly the moment I stumbled, and happened to understand exactly how I felt, I would no longer be emotionally independent either.
There is nothing wrong with asking for help. The problem is that anyone and anything outside yourself is inherently unstable. Your parents may support you in life and in money; your partner and your friends may hold you up emotionally. But any of them can leave you at any moment, by choice or not. By choice — the simplest examples are a partner’s heart changing, or a friend’s betrayal. Not by choice — the death of someone you love.
So when the person you have long depended on leaves you, how are you supposed to carry on? Once I saw this clearly, I started learning independence ahead of time, building the habits before I ever had to.
I don’t dare ask much of other people, because I’m afraid of being let down. And I have been — pain that lands on your own body cuts far deeper than any lecture heard secondhand.
I’m afraid of getting hurt, so I no longer reach out to the world asking for anything. What I can do is make myself strong enough that when I need something, the helping hand extended to me can be my own.
Loving others matters, of course, but it starts with learning to love yourself. The day I no longer need to ask the world for love is the day I can give love to the world — expecting nothing in return, because there is nothing I lack anymore.