SELF-RELIANCE

People who lack a sense of self tend to disregard the “details” of life with a carefree attitude, believing that things will all sort themselves out. But things don’t always sort themselves out. Taking responsibility pulls you back from the precipice and lets you be self-reliant and self-determined, no longer carried along by the waves of fate.

Much of my life was on loan from others, showing me how self-reliant and self-determined those individuals were, and how the opposite I was. At some point, my brain had told me it was okay to rely on others to the point I no longer needed to rely on myself. I felt some facsimile of me, or perhaps of someone like me, layered over my existence like a transparency, and the image projected was the ideals of those I chose to allow power over my life, and so I substituted self-reliance for fear.

You see there is an unexplained mystique about life that to me resembles many umbrellas. These umbrellas represent different life paths; religion is one example of an umbrella. Fate is also one of those umbrellas, but If fate is part of that mystery, then how do you explain the vast differences in wealth, status, intelligence, and basic human compassion? What determines our lives before we even begin them, who chooses what fate befalls any person? Does the theory of fate begin to shrink immeasurably when you observe the unique individual destinations of each person who is, and ever has been? Fate cannot defend what a man is if not a singular entity capable of designing every aspect of his life, even his own reality.

Traditional usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or “inevitable” and unavoidable. This is a concept based on the belief that there is a fixed natural order to the universe, and in some conceptions, the cosmos. Classical and European mythology feature personified “fate spinners,” known as the Moirai in Greek mythology, the Parcae in Roman mythology, and the Norns in Norse mythology. They determine the events of the world through the mystic spinning of threads that represent individual human fates. Fate is often conceived as being divinely inspired.

“Fate is about the present, where every decision an individual has made has led them to their present scenario. However, Destiny is the future scenario determined by decisions an individual will make.”

Destiny is used with regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out; and to that same sense of “destination”, projected into the future to become the flow of events as they will work themselves out. Fatalism refers to the belief that events fixed by fate are unchangeable by any type of human agency. In other words, humans cannot alter their own fates or the fates of others.

So, if Fate is about the present, where every decision an individual has made has led them to their present scenario, and Destiny is the future scenario determined by decisions an individual will make, would not at some point these two have been the inverse of one another, therefore, making the point of Destiny and Fate null and void?
Which brings me to my point that every person can control his or her reality in this universe simply by choosing a destination and continuing on that path until achieved.

Let me give you a short story to relate to my idea. In 2008 I designed a project and proposal for the Government of Bermuda to help with the landfill at the airport in Castle Harbor, and future use of waste management. This project was the focus of my life for four (4) years. Once completed I began canvassing for investors, and also for the Government to lease me a one (1) acre piece of land on the landfill to set up machinery for processing, I did attract and get commitments from investors, but the government would not agree or disagree on the site lease making the project mute.

So, I went to the chief investor to talk about other alternatives, but he didn’t see any and so I came up with the idea of possibly moving the venture to England. I had a UK Passport and a grant for $20,000. I packed a bag and headed for England, this was in 2012. I arrived at Gatwick around 6:00 a.m. on December 13, and could tell that the announced minus 1-degree temperature was real as I saw a smoky vapor coming up from the tarmac.

My first point of arrival after leaving Gatwick was the London Victoria Train Station. I was in fear by the throng of people rushing in every direction, it seemed I was going one way and everyone else another. I never was one for large cities and mobs, I had grown accustomed to the suburbs and the semi-quietness of Bermuda. But anyway I got a hotel at the Grange Rochester, on Rochester Row and began my life in England.

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We all begin this journey into life dependent on someone. The early stages are generally with parent, though being of the human race we know there are children raised under harsher conditions. Self-Reliance must be a condition of survival, a mechanism whereby an individual can overcome the various obstacles proposed by life and its environment. Morality and the sense of good judgement are not inherent traits genetically dealt in a hand of cards, these are characteristics formed of a behavioral condition passed down from a similar set of formed characteristics through people we trust and thus emulate.

Becoming too dependent on someone or something strips away our ability to be Self-Reliant. There must be a certain amount of reliance on other’s, after all we don’t have all the answers to everything, but remember too much of a reliance on other’s can become a dependency. Things have sort of changed dramatically, but do you remember back in the 50’s and earlier when a woman married a man who was the sole provider leaving her shackled to family, forfeiting a life of her own, and then losing that husband and finding she has nowhere to turn, knows nothing, well that is what relying on someone so much feels like.

Relying on other’s without a safety net is dangerous. People tend to use people who are in a position of need. The world is not necessarily filled with nice people, the shitty one’s dominate. Overly relying on others is like handcuffing yourself to a bus, you kind of want to not be in a situation like that. People also overly rely on a partner or spouse, which is definitely a bad move. Not only does it speak negatively about the relationship, but it also infers that one or both of the people in the relationship may be in-genuine, using the relationship for more personal gain.

The key to Self-Reliance is finding your own path, writing your own story, and forfeiting things that you can’t provide for yourself. Live within the boundaries of your own abilities, yet always try to reach for something more. Self-Reliance is about knowing your contribution to your life. Dare to be different, be more creative, there are more answers to a single problem than you know, the key and beauty of life is finding them and appreciating yourself for doing so. Stand up and be counted in your uniqueness where you alone can reserve the dignity of who you are. Never become a puppet to anyone, and never falsely use people for your own personal gain, that is a sign of weakness.