How Free Are You?
- Heather McFall
We start our life as small children completely “dependent”. In adolescence we start to feel like our parents just don’t understand and we venture out into learning new ways of seeing life. This new discovery is “independence”. We learn to drive, get our own place, pay bills and learn to go without one thing in order to have another thing. This sacrifice and reward and delayed pleasure on our own pushes us to gain maturity.
Practice Maturity
How much practicing maturity does it take? The answer is very similar to learning a musical instrument or foreign language. You must practice correctly over and over until your nature starts to do it automatically. If we don’t practice for a while we get “rusty”, as they say.
When we live an independent lifestyle for a time we get secure in our ability to survive and live on equal footing with the rest of society. With that skill intact the next step is layered with practicing teamwork.
Expand Your Possibilities with Intra-Dependence
The problem is people associate a team sport with teamwork. That is everyone doing the thing they do best for the whole. That is still independence or individual work. The actual next step is “intra-dependence” this is the ability to maturely ebb and flow in a partnership or group where you can lean on their skills while confidently sharing your skills without competition, hierarchy or jealousy.
With intra-dependence you can truly expand your possibilities because you have your talents, skills and
abilities folded into your intra-dependent partnerships. It is the difference between running a corner store alone working 80 hours a week or running an international billion dollar chain of stores.
Ask yourself; Are you dependent on someone or something else for resources? That is dependence. Usually from age 0-18 years old. Are you desperately in need of control? That is independence.
Independence is Only Half the Battle
Do you celebrate and acknowledge the skills of others with a genuine desire to blend skills to make something bigger than you could on your own? That is intra-dependence. 18-22 years old and on or with marriage or business partnership.
Everyone fights for their independence but not many realize that is only half the battle.
The easiest people to manipulate are those fighting for independence. They are insecure, limited in resources and often short sighted. It makes them easy prey for manipulation because they aren’t goal oriented but rather proving themselves. Which means they can be manipulated by simply challenging their views.
