We All Need Somebody to Lean on

The easiest legs to stand on are my own. See, I have two of them in case one fails. I can walk around without need for support, and pick myself up from being down without a hand. On my own legs I stand firmly; I run, jump, kick, hop, and skip. They work without fail, and with some dedication I can build them to be stronger. They have the potential to carry the weight of my life. Furthermore they may carry your load as well. My legs are the starting point of my self-reliance.

The most trustworthy hand is attached to my wrist. In their mirrored pair, my hands work together to balance the many tasks of my life. When too many things are added, they learn to juggle or drop the ball, but either way they act with confidence and poise. They may hoist me up, pull up and push up my entire being with relative ease. They never leave my side, and always lend themselves to my needs. They are musical instruments, communicative tools, and defensive weapons. My hands take care of me, and yet they are a potential path to reliance on others. But the hands of others may slip through my fingers; they may falter in weakness or pull away at my need. My hands will never leave me, and as such are the next point of my self-reliance.

While I may say your criticism will be taken to heart, in reality it'll go straight to my head. My head houses my thoughts, it is the inn in which my creativity and originality resides. My memory works to extract all the ideas buried deep within this vast expanse and use them as I need. My head allows me to file away and retrieve anything I may have use for, without requiring the assistance of others. Intelligence is a testament to one’s ability to self-rely; without need for reference I may demonstrate the ability to recall one of the many pieces of info you require with a simple process of the mind. Not only do we encourage this, we strive to be ever more intelligent. My head is the final place where my self-reliance is built.

And yet, though it exists as a default position discovered and enacted with reflex reactions, it is ever apparent that self-reliance is a horrible fault. Not the kind of self-reliance which allows you to dress yourself, mind you, but the kind which teaches you self-dependence without regard for the world around you. I suffer from such a heavily flawed inability to depend on others as a result of this crippling self-reliance and often I wonder why. Why is it that I find it so hard to rely on others? Beyond the obvious answer that others have let me down consistently in the past, I think the answer is because self-reliance exists all around me. It is in my legs, in my hands, in my mind, in all that I do.

It highlights a seemingly paradoxical command; to live reliant on something or someone else, yet to maintain my integrity and wholeness as a person. My self cannot be removed from the equation, but in order to be completely reliant elsewhere, it appears it must. So then, how may I remain myself without allowing selfishness overwhelm my life; without allowing self-reliance to plague my every act? My self, the very person I am, must change. I must will, desire, and yearn to live my life for others. If it's all about me internally, I'll never display selflessness externally. For me to overcome self-reliance, I need to choose to put others first. This choice can't be a fleeting one; it must become a consistent, ever-present conscious decision. To avoid living a lie, being one person inside, and another on the outside, I must be aware of the ease of falling into self-reliance, and I must reject it.

To be the person I want to be, I need to work harder than I've ever worked, and change from the inside out. I must seek help in changing, for I'll never have the strength on my own to live outside the reaches of my many tools of selfishness and self-reliance. This is where it's so easy to get it wrong. When it becomes time to change, how easy it is to say "okay, I can do this", without ever considering that was the very mentality which brought me here. Today I say, "Okay, You can do this in me".