Dependency is love
A lot of us believe that “independence is strength.” We like figuring things out on our own, owning our time and plan, and feeling that we don’t need anyone else to be happy or succeed. We are outright afraid that we would need someone else actually.
We’re not great at asking for help, and we REALLY dislike when we severely need it. When ill, we prefer wrapping ourselves in blankets and horsely say; “I’m fine!” (God bless home delivery of food and painkillers!!)
When someone says “they are proud of us,” we read it as patronizing.
But, the headache is that“no m̶a̶n̶ person is an island.” It is thoughtfully unwise to want to be disconnected from other (caring) people. It shortens life [1], and as shown in the famous “Rat Park” experiment, social cohesion reduces the risk of addiction [2].
We need reprogramming.
Find your ground and challengers
First, we need to spend time with friends and people who care about us, which is hard because we work too much.
When I was building my first startup, I had a weekly recurring meeting with myself in the calendar called “Hang out with X.” Every week, I needed to figure out who X was — who would I play badminton, have dinner, or take a walk with this week? And the rule was that it wasn’t related to colleagues or work.
It was a great trick to make me have normal conversations and realize that there were more important things in life than those on my to-do list.
These people often grounded me (in a positive way), but sometimes, they acted like my challenger advisory board. They got me to think bigger or different. They challenged me because they cared about me.
Allow people to love you
Secondly, and more importantly, we need to realize that being dependent on someone is showing vulnerability, and their reciprocating and helping us is a sign of love.
“People that have trust issues only need to look in the mirror. There they will meet the one person that will betray them the most.”― Shannon L. Alder
The problem with not trusting people, not wanting to be vulnerable with people, and not being dependent on people is that you will not truly be close to others.
I think about it every time someone asks me for help — genuinely, deeply asks me for help — that it is a sign that they trust me and think I love them.
Isn’t that beautiful? Are you doing that to the people around you? Do you allow them to love you?
