SELF-RELIANCE
“The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs”………. Douglas Jerrold, English playwright & humorist
By self-reliance I merely mean the ability to rely on ourselves to do whatever we feel should be done. We cannot be happy unless we are in control of our own lives. Hindu text called The Laws of Manu states, "Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself. True happiness is born of self-reliance." Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Some choose to rely on God whenever they're in a jam. But according to the Greek Dramatist Aeschylus, who wrote about 2,500 years ago, "God loves to help him who strives to help himself."
The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Self-reliance does not necessarily imply self-sufficiency, but enhanced capability through economic, social, and/or political change. Self-reliance in thinking is as important as self-reliance in educational systems. Finding ways to encourage children to think for themselves and to be critical thinkers are crucial elements for a free and free-thinking society. If we reject what our parents, teachers or church have taught us simply because they say something is right, does that make us independent thinkers? No, that's just what psychologists call "anti-conformity" rather than non-conformity.
Independent thinking is not necessarily rational or critical. Sometimes you make mistakes; sometimes it's difficult to know whether your beliefs are your own or simply uncritically borrowed. No one ever said independent thinking is easy. Critical thinking is a tool that can help you decide whether your old beliefs are sensible. It can help you examine new ideas or help you solve problems in reasonable ways.
Self-reliance of any kind, political, social or personal, is not an easy goal to reach. "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else," writes e.e. Cummings, means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight, and never stop fighting. It's a battle well worth fighting-for ourselves and for future generations.