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Our lives are woven together. As much as I enjoy my own company, I no longer imagine I can get through a single day much less all my life completely on my own. Even if I am on vacation in the mountains, I am eating food someone else has grown, living in a house someone else has built, wearing clothes someone else has sewn from cloth woven by others, using electricity someone else is distributing to my house. Evidence of interdependence is everywhere; we are on this journey together.
As I was growing up, I remember being carefully taught that independence not interdependence was everything. “Make your own way”, Stand on your own two feet” or my mother’s favorite remark when I was face-to-face with consequences of some action: Now that you’ve made your bed, lie on it.
Total independence is a dominant thing in our culture. I imagine that what my parents were trying to teach me was to take responsibilities for my actions and my choices. But the teaching was shaped by our cultural imagines. And instead, I grew up believing that I was supposed to be totally independent and consequently became very reluctant to ask for help. I would do almost anything not to be a burden, and not require any help from anybody.
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