Recently, I have talked about how to live more independently. I created a new category (Category: Becoming independent), so use this category if you want to refer to the articles related to this topic. (Older articles contain concepts in development.)
Since I talked about almost all, let’s wrap up this topic today.
How to live more independently
Sometimes, we want to distance ourselves from a stressful society and live more independently. Social life, such as working as an employee, long working hours, caring for others’ emotions, or a lack of freedom, often exhausts us.
If we have unique individuality, we may have such a tendency. We cannot live the same way as our surroundings. We want to do things freely without patience.
That is why we want more independence.
The obstacles to independence
However, we sometimes cannot make it happen.
Even if we try to build our own business, we don’t always succeed. We often have stagnation and a lack of feeling progress. There would be parts of the business we are not good at, such as sales or advertising. In addition, the more we focus on business, the more we lose our freedom. This causes a bad cycle—struggling, frustration, losing our motivation, and causing stagnation.
We can see that such an approach is unsuited for independence. Making a new cog in society and relying on it is not the self-reliance we desire. We want to reduce social stress, show our individuality, and live more autonomously.
We need a way to be self-reliant that allows us to improve steadily without stagnation and patience.
To realize this, I propose a method to become more independent. This is a goal-setting method to proceed while satisfying two contradictory aspects. Today, I will summarize it.
Overview of my method
My method is based on the following two elements:
- Find two contradictory approaches instead of one supreme way. Being active and taking a rest, changing inside and changing outside, or preparing and waiting are examples. They are contradictory, but both are necessary. We avoid a supreme way, such as chasing money.
- Decide by mood. Feeling frustrated means it is time to switch the approach to another side.
This allows us to proceed toward independence while satisfying our wants and feeling steady progress without stagnation. Let me explain why below.
The duality that we have to satisfy
To feel happiness, we have to satisfy two contradictory aspects inside us. I call it duality. We have at least two aspects of wants, such as a desire to be energetic and a wish for relaxation, contributing to others and caring for ourselves, making changes and creating stability, or a desire to challenge hard problems and a wish for comfort without troubles.
In other words, we are essentially contradictory. We have to satisfy both to feel happiness.
Our states swing between these two wants. Sometimes, we want one side, but sometimes we want the other side. It is like a pendulum.
On the other hand, social life demands that we show only one side. For example, if we are employees and at work, we must stay cheerful and not be allowed to show negativity. We must cooperate with society, or we will be eliminated.
If we have individuality, suppressing it causes suffering. That makes us want to distance ourselves from social life and become independent.
Two ways of life
It means there are two ways of life, as follows:
- In social life, we have to show only one side of our aspects that follows social values. Society requires that we show a consistent attitude. It gives us social credit and the social power to control the society. In other words, the goal is to become one great cog in society.
- In an independent way of life, we have to fill both sides of our contradictory wants. We have to switch our states appropriately according to our physical or mental states, deciding by mood. It allows us to stay alive. In other words, survival is the purpose of self-reliance.
If we cannot satisfy both aspects, there is no point in being independent. We have to consider and balance our two states.
The solution
This is why finding two contradictory approaches instead of one supreme way and deciding by mood works for becoming more independent.
Finding two contradictory approaches allows us to establish our consistency in the contradiction. It is like a pendulum. Although it swings, it is harmonious. They support our way of life in any situation.
There will be multiple angles, as follows:
- Being active and taking a rest
- Changing inside and changing outside
- Contributing to others and caring for ourselves
- Making changes and creating stability
- Challenging hard problems and relaxing in the current situation
- Denying the world and being grateful for the world
- Preparing and waiting
- Adding things and reducing things
- Being confident in our knowledge and being aware of our ignorance
- Starting something and stopping something
Although these are all the same essentially, seeing our state from multiple angles will help us understand more accurately. You can choose and combine them as you like.
On the other hand, one supreme way, such as making money, is not for self-reliance. If we use it for independence, it causes stagnation, as I explained at the beginning of this article. Biasing one aspect causes the bad cycle of frustration, struggling, losing our motivation, and sticking to one side of our wants.
Deciding by mood
We can choose how to behave based on our moods. Although deciding by mood is worthless in social life, it works well when we live self-reliantly.
Our mood is reliable. It is the result of the subconsciousness that is considered with our experiences, intuition, knowledge, wisdom, and individuality. When we live independently away from society, the person who knows our situation the most is ourselves.
When we feel our mood honestly, it tells us what to do. We naturally focus on what we need.
In other words, we use our subconsciousness efficiently. We might often deny the answer from it because it goes against social values. However, we can use it for independence.
Finding a direct way
This way is effective in avoiding stagnation, especially when we get stuck by one means, such as creating a new business. We can understand that creating our own business to make money is a means of a means. It is not directly linked to the end: independence.
What we have to focus on is means, not a means of a means.
This method allows us to find a direct way to fulfill our wishes. We can find out things that directly affect our lives, even gradually. This gives us steady improvement, motivates us, and satisfies our contradictory wants.
Conclusion
That is my method to become more independent.
This is based on two elements: finding two contradictory approaches instead of one supreme way and deciding by mood.
This might allow us to improve our lives steadily toward independence without stagnation and patience.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
