JULY | 2019 | FRONT PAGE

THE INDEPENDENT GENT

The vast majority of us think we know what independence is, but do we really know? True independence is demonstrated by not caring what people think, and executed through the exercise of emotional freedom. These these things come with layers, so it's not always so simple. None of you reading this are islands unto yourselves, and it's safe to say that you need and depend on certain people for certain things. If you didn’t you’d be living a life of solitude, which is something we really don’t suggest trying. 

No matter how hard we work to pretend that we aren’t, we’re all concerned with the things people think about us. Their perceptions can and will impact the ways we move. If there’s any credibility to be given to birds of a feather flocking together, it’ll be evident in where we’re heading next. Let’s say that your church going sister thinks the world about every aspect of you with the exception of your sexuality, and that she makes no secret about it. Yeah, you’ll probably wanna shake the hell out of her, and she’ll probably deserve it, but you don’t need to do so based off of what she thinks about a small piece of you. 

In order to effectively not care about what people think, you’ve got to chew on a few facts. First, it’s none of your business what people, especially your sister, thinks about you laying up with another man. It has nothing to do with her. No matter what the opinion is that others have about you, its their opinion, and it says more about them than it does about you. The second way to not give a fuck about the things people think about you is to remain true to yourself. Remaining true to yourself means that you follow the value system you’ve set for yourself, stand firm in the things you believe in, and remember that your happiness does not rely on their shitty opinions. 

The next  part of this is not going to be easy, but it’ll always be necessary. Remove the people with negative opinions about you from your life as much as possible. The more you include them, the more opinions they’ll form against you, so spend a little time with this consideration, and in making cuts where necessary. Until science can prove otherwise, you’ll only live once, and you’ll find more joy in living your best life than you will trying to live a life guided by the opinions of others. 

As good as emotional support from others is, you’ve gotta figure out ways to support yourself emotionally in the event that those you rely on are unable to provide it. You do this by remaining connected to your emotions and the ways they’re triggered through developing a personal understanding of why you respond to certain things in certain ways.

Emotional freedom is gained through self acceptance, which is actually harder than gaining the acceptance of others. One of the reasons self acceptance is such a challenge is because it forces you to accept your reality. For example, if something someone says about you is true, and you don’t like it, doesn’t mean that it's any less true. Oh, you didn’t think we were going to give you a pass, did you? Self acceptance requires you to look at your ugly truths, to accept them and, if possible, to change them. 

Doing this will lead you to the second requirement for emotional freedom, which is to own your own outcomes. This is where you own the details of your actions and make an honest statement to yourself about whether you over or under delivered, and why you did whatever it was you did. Owning your outcomes may induce a much needed come to Jesus moment as you reflect, but that’ll give you the opportunity to practice the third and final part of this, and that’s celebrating your strengths.

Okay, so check it, you’re in a church full of people and they all know about that leaked video of you sucking d**k in the front pew of the church. If you revisit that which we’ve already mentioned you’ll accept the reality that you did what you did, and own the outcome that came as a result of you allowing the action to be recorded.

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You know the saints have an opinion of you, but the only reason you should care is if you know you didn’t do your best. Did he cum? Did he call you the next day? Did you do the best job you could? If so, then celebrate your strengths, dammit! According to Epictetus, you should “Make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens.” Celebrating your strengths isn’t easy, but it sets you up to find your version of perfection.

Celebrate your strengths by recognizing your unique talents, the confidence people have in those talents, and the ways in which they rely on both you and your talents. Now it won’t always involve you sucking d**k at the alter, but it’ll certainly involve acknowledging the areas you excel in. 

You have the ability to be your own best friend, to be honest with yourself, to do the things that work best for you, and to carry yourself in ways that make you proud. Again, none of this is to suggest that you shouldn’t rely on others for these things, because that’d be impossible. What’s important is that you don’t allow your emotional reliance on those around you to hinder your independence, and that you don’t give their opinions permission to change you in ways that benefit them more than they benefit you. 

At one point or another we’ve all, cared what someone thought about us. We’ve cared about what the people sitting in on the panel interview we attended thought about us, because it determined whether or not we got the job. We cared about what the brothers of the fraternity we applied for thought because we wanted to get in, and we care about what our friends, family, and partners think about us as well. It's easy to say we don’t care, but we do, because if we didn’t we’d all be hermits. We all care what people think, and for the most  part there’s nothing wrong with that. 

The problem hides in the extent to which we care about what others think of us. Such, it’s not about not caring about what others think about us, but the ways we respond to, and shield ourselves from their negative opinions of us. Interdependence is tied to this because it divorces us from relying on their opinions of us, and allows us to live the lives we’ve designed for us, and not them.