The only person you can totally depend upon is, yes, YOURSELF. I'm not expounding the tenets of some new-age mantra, or self-help pop psychology of today, I'm stating a basic and an irrefutable truth of life that we all have to face at one point or another. Somehow, as humans, we are uncomfortable with the idea of 'being on our own' the thought is depressing, it raises visions of ourselves abandoned and alone miserable with no one to talk to or share our life with. There is also a social stigma against 'wanting to be on one's own' it is not seen as a choice but a lack of one! Those on their own are alone because no one wants to be with them, and this is true of many people, but not all.
My point is whether alone or in a relationship, at the end of it all, we are on our own. How? you may very rightly ask, the thing is what we feel, whatever we dream of, what are ambitions are all gets muddled in the business of life, as we grow older we increasingly realize that life has passed us and we have not done what all we set out to. This isn't to portray a depressing sketch of life but a very common feeling we all at one time or another face. Children leave home, careers come to an end, friends and loved ones are lost to distance and death and we pause to take stock of the past and get disillusioned. Most of us all through our lives feel misunderstood, not validated, ignored, taken fore granted, short-changed and have this silent resentment towards others and mainly ourselves for letting circumstances and other people use us.
My argument is - we shouldn't let ourselves be fooled by these feelings. We all are alone intrinsically, no matter how healthy our relationships are with our spouses, children, parents and friends, we tread our path alone, solitary. Our problems and our responses to them are unique to us and no matter how hard you try to explain them to another the substance is somehow lost in translation. We bear our burdens, wear our own cross, and our personal albatross is hanging from our withered necks, and no help from others can extinguish the lonesomeness of the soul, the soul that passes the tunnel of death to the other side all on its own.
If this is the case, why resist? why shy away from it? why try to camouflage it? We must start to be at ease with our own thoughts, our bodies, our likes and dislikes, our being and what it is happy in. Self reliance here does not only mean taking care of yourself, it means being there for yourself and enjoying being your own person and doing what you love. It means supporting yourself emotionally, understanding your nuances, your mood swings, your needs, building a value system, knocking down the skeletons in the cupboard, facing the monster under the bed, and finally sticking it all out because you have yourself, and in that sense you are never alone.
It is a herculean task, maybe for a misanthrope and a loner like me an easy one to master, but I beseech you all to do some soul-searching, to look within and some how develop a dialogue with yourself, because its the only person you can truly rely on!
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