Standing On Our Own Two Feet

One of the greatest things to learn in life is independence.

When growing up as children we have to depend on our family for survival reasons and the early teaching of life’s ways. We learn to adapt to changes through the ups and downs of our life as we proceed to grow up and mature. The strongest lesson of all is the ability to depend on our own self for survival and within our teens we start to delve into this new arena. Most develop naturally to adjust to changes and seek time alone for their own individual needs in order to get away from the suffocating structures that they see within their family environment, wanting to be the boss of their own set lifestyle.

This necessity to be free and unrestricted by life’s pressures is a natural progression for most but for the few it takes time to realize how important independence really is. It sets us up on a road to self satisfaction and rewards that do not rely on others to be achieved. Standing on our own two feet really means to hold a ground to what we are as unique and individual people, showing the world what we have to offer from within, from our own personal viewpoint. What makes independence so strong is the need to not have to rely on another person in order to achieve and enjoy life for what it has to offer. There is no need to ask another for approval or advice, instead following a path on personal choices and an individual drive and passion.

What this sets up for a person when they seek to have self independence, is that they no longer have to feel pressured to live up to another person’s expectations. They no longer have to be held down by another person’s rules and laws within a family or defined structure. This opens up a new doorway to possibility, allowing a person to not be hindered by expectations in order to achieve. They then can view other people as individual and unique and instead of fighting in order to be heard, they see eye to eye with another as a separate individual, defining themselves on the basis of their own guiding rather than feeling pressured by another person’s defined way of seeing.

This is exactly the point that is to be understood, that another person’s way of seeing is from a different perspective. Their concepts and ideas are not always going to be what gives us a lead on life but merely an opinion based on their own individual philosophy and experiences. There might be facts laid out here and there, that we might regard as we further on in life, but the choice to see it or not is based purely on our own desire to see value in their reasoning. Whether we live within a defined structure of rules in a family environment these issues will still arise on who is right or wrong when it comes to ideas about how life should be lived. However when we are independent these conflicts that we have with other people become something else, they become choice based and when we talk with others about decisions and ideas, they are discussed on a more basic level. This allows for us to make a choice whether to take the advice on or not, giving us back the power to choose for our own development and lifestyle.

What happens when we decide not to follow the path of independence? Imagine how life would be if we continually chose to depend on others for all that we do, asking them always for advice and opinion in order to structure our own lives and how to live it. Can you imagine how life would be as a person who only follows in another person’s footprints in order to construct their own experiences? It would almost be seen as stupidity and blindness, showing only that a person refuses or is too scared to take the reins for their own choices in life. They say then why did I get such a different experience when I did things in the same way? Or why did I get hurt when you did not?

We cannot have another person’s life, it is that simple. Their choices are based on their own character and structure of life that they have already built around them. We cannot be them as much as they cannot be us to know what is good for our own future and desires. Taking on their set rules and structure only shows that we have a fear inside us to make choices for ourselves, preferring to hide behind another person’s direction instead of taking responsibility for our own actions and experiences.

An example of this might be when we see a relationship that another friend has with her partner as special, this does not mean ever that we will have the experience in the same way. To steal the friend’s relationship away from them will never mean that we will experience it in the same way. Depending on another person’s happiness to be our own, only shows our inability to build up our own unique experiences. We cannot have that experience of life for the fact that it belongs to another. Stealing or following in the shoes of another only then shows that we have little creativity or passion to search on our own to find our own unique experience. It can also show an inability to see unique beauty in our own personal experiences, leading to the thought that maybe we do not know how to build a life on our own choices, ambitions and desires, instead then choosing for another person’s experiences and philosophy as our own.

Knowing that individual creativity is special is one of the first stepping stones to independence. We no longer have to look to other people for approval or for a better life in which to lead. What we already create for ourselves is unique and special. It forms who we are and gives us two strong feet in which to stand on, leading us towards a path of seeing life in our own eyes instead of trying hard to fit into the shoes of another. Just like in the tale of Cinderella, there is only one who can be her and as much as we all try and fit in her shoe, she will still be the one who marries the prince and the one who will live happily ever after. We might not be Cinderella but we can create our own unique fairy tale that can bring to us all that we desire and wish to experience as an individual and unique perception through independence.

By Stacey T Pollock