Self-Reliance

I think one of the biggest lies that we face as human beings is the lie that we can, somehow, be self-reliant. I, myself, believed this for a very long time. In fact, when I was in the sixth grade, I read Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay Self-Reliance and thought to myself, this is brilliant. "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles." To my sixth grade mind, this was the apex of human thought. You pare away everything, are left with just yourself, and you realize that's all you need. After reading Henry David Thoreau, Emerson's Disciple, and his experiences at Walden Pond, I thought two things:

1) I should really get a name that requires writing the middle name every time (Steven Danger Choi was a serious contender.)
2) I want to live in the Yukon.

One of those statements I was really serious about. I felt that I could easily live by myself, save a bunch of books. It would certainly be the best existence I could conceive; I would live on exactly what I needed, educate myself further, and never waste a moment of my life except on keeping myself alive.

It's taken me all the way to now to realize: that was dumb.

The idea that a man could exist by himself is plausible. But I would quickly submit that that is not true living at all. To live solely dependent on yourself is to shortchange everything, everyone, most of all, yourself and God. It'd be like going from being a human being backwards into being a dog; you would consider that a downgrade, the same way going from being a dog down to a flower would be a downgrade in terms of experience. You experience less, you know less, I think this leads us to be able to say, in the end, you have less. To think that things come from your own fruition, as the work of solely your own hands, is to defraud yourself from the joy of the dependence on the Lord.

I mean, God even warned the Israelites against such foolish thinking. Deuteronomy 8 reads:

11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ... 17 You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

He warns the Israelites to not begin to think that anything is of their own doing, but urges them to continue to remember that it is all by God's hand. Why is that?

Because it's what's best for them. To know that it's not about you relieves you of the anxiety of performance. It changes the perspective from needing to accomplish to wanting to fulfill. And I think that shift is so powerful. When we're able to let go of that tension of accomplishment, and instead want to do well in the same way a child simply wants to do well in front of a parent:

Well, we're free.