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Published On: Apr 26, 2006 10:02 PM
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Published On: Apr 26, 2006 10:02 PM
Oooh... You're So Self-Reliant!
Greetings, readers! Hope noone's died of
withdrawal as of yet. As for me, I'm at my new duty location, and some
occurences of late have me thinking about the concept of self-reliance, or
self-sufficiency.
A co-worker of mine has, since our arrival here, been entirely dependent on myself or our other team member to do... basically everything for her. As a true, but extreme example, today she asked me to figure out what was wrong with a small desk lamp. I quickly ascertained that the bulb was blown, and that it needed replacing. Tough stuff, right? I've also had to remove curtains from her window, lift cans of water for her, and drive her to meals.
I'm not just bitching about her. It frankly amazed me, however, that anyone could have survived in our world and been so helpless. Small acts of construction amaze her -- we're talking tiny acts here. I screwed two screws into a wooden medicine cabinet, tied a piece of string between them, hung towels on it and proclaimed it a hand-towel rack, and that amazed her.
This morning she confessed. "It's so nice having a... how can I say this? Someone handy around. I do all these things at home, and here I don't have to." This was after the light bulb incident.
Now, I have no reason to doubt her honesty about this; she's never expressed any shame over her requests, so I can't think that she just developed embarrassment over it. Nor can I believe, as I said before, that anyone would be that helpless.
I also considered that it might bother me to feel less useful to her, but rejected that idea really quickly. Why, you may ask? Because part of being self-reliant is not depending on others to dictate your feelings to you. My usefulness to her is not a part of my own sense of taking care of myself, and therefore it didn't bother me as it might have.
Bottom line is that I can take care of myself. I can build walls, fix light switches, flip circuit breakers, determine if a light bulb is broken by the scratches on the powder/paint on the inside of it, hang towels on a piece of string, clean my own bathroom, and maintain a car. Whether other people can do this does not affect my ability to do so, and having to do those things for them is not a source of validity for me. While I'm happy to take care of others when necessary, it doesn't help complete my sense of self-reliance to take care of others.
On the other hand, my co-worker is voluntarily giving up her own self-reliance for the sake of what I can only assume is laziness. That's not something I believe a heathen could do (luckily, to my knowledge, my co-worker isn't heathen). Another example is that she hired some local nationals to clean her bathroom. She offered the same to me, and I found that the only way I could explain it to her was that I wasn't brought up that way. You don't get others to clean up your mess; you clean it up yourself. Just a philosophical difference, I guess. I'm proud of my ability to take care of me, and I don't consider being able to hire a maid as part of that.
Clear enough? Let's take it one step further. While talking with my other co-worker, she told me a story about the un-self-reliant (in my opinion) co-worker. Seems she'd gotten two emails today, one from a family member and one from a good friend. The family member went on and on about how proud they all were of her, and how brave she was to come over here, etc. It was so sweet; it made her cry. Yeah, she really does that. On the other hand, the friend didn't say anything like that at all. "She said one sentence about me! 'Glad you're doing okay.' All of the rest of her email was about what's going on with her!"
Another part of self-reliance in which my coworker seems to not be interested is not requiring constant external validation. I don't know if I always do as well as I would like in this regard, but the above example shows the problem. For other people, it isn't all about me. They have their own life stories that they want to share, and mine is only a footnote to theirs. I shouldn't need their validation or words of praise in order to be proud of what I do or what I've done.
Other people's opinions are important, of course, but they are not the ultimate key to my self-esteem. Self-esteem should be based in the self, as should self-reliance.
It's funny, I guess. A non-heathen has given me a lesson in a heathen value. You never know where the next bit of wisdom will come from. Keep your eyes open, guys!
A co-worker of mine has, since our arrival here, been entirely dependent on myself or our other team member to do... basically everything for her. As a true, but extreme example, today she asked me to figure out what was wrong with a small desk lamp. I quickly ascertained that the bulb was blown, and that it needed replacing. Tough stuff, right? I've also had to remove curtains from her window, lift cans of water for her, and drive her to meals.
I'm not just bitching about her. It frankly amazed me, however, that anyone could have survived in our world and been so helpless. Small acts of construction amaze her -- we're talking tiny acts here. I screwed two screws into a wooden medicine cabinet, tied a piece of string between them, hung towels on it and proclaimed it a hand-towel rack, and that amazed her.
This morning she confessed. "It's so nice having a... how can I say this? Someone handy around. I do all these things at home, and here I don't have to." This was after the light bulb incident.
Now, I have no reason to doubt her honesty about this; she's never expressed any shame over her requests, so I can't think that she just developed embarrassment over it. Nor can I believe, as I said before, that anyone would be that helpless.
I also considered that it might bother me to feel less useful to her, but rejected that idea really quickly. Why, you may ask? Because part of being self-reliant is not depending on others to dictate your feelings to you. My usefulness to her is not a part of my own sense of taking care of myself, and therefore it didn't bother me as it might have.
Bottom line is that I can take care of myself. I can build walls, fix light switches, flip circuit breakers, determine if a light bulb is broken by the scratches on the powder/paint on the inside of it, hang towels on a piece of string, clean my own bathroom, and maintain a car. Whether other people can do this does not affect my ability to do so, and having to do those things for them is not a source of validity for me. While I'm happy to take care of others when necessary, it doesn't help complete my sense of self-reliance to take care of others.
On the other hand, my co-worker is voluntarily giving up her own self-reliance for the sake of what I can only assume is laziness. That's not something I believe a heathen could do (luckily, to my knowledge, my co-worker isn't heathen). Another example is that she hired some local nationals to clean her bathroom. She offered the same to me, and I found that the only way I could explain it to her was that I wasn't brought up that way. You don't get others to clean up your mess; you clean it up yourself. Just a philosophical difference, I guess. I'm proud of my ability to take care of me, and I don't consider being able to hire a maid as part of that.
Clear enough? Let's take it one step further. While talking with my other co-worker, she told me a story about the un-self-reliant (in my opinion) co-worker. Seems she'd gotten two emails today, one from a family member and one from a good friend. The family member went on and on about how proud they all were of her, and how brave she was to come over here, etc. It was so sweet; it made her cry. Yeah, she really does that. On the other hand, the friend didn't say anything like that at all. "She said one sentence about me! 'Glad you're doing okay.' All of the rest of her email was about what's going on with her!"
Another part of self-reliance in which my coworker seems to not be interested is not requiring constant external validation. I don't know if I always do as well as I would like in this regard, but the above example shows the problem. For other people, it isn't all about me. They have their own life stories that they want to share, and mine is only a footnote to theirs. I shouldn't need their validation or words of praise in order to be proud of what I do or what I've done.
Other people's opinions are important, of course, but they are not the ultimate key to my self-esteem. Self-esteem should be based in the self, as should self-reliance.
It's funny, I guess. A non-heathen has given me a lesson in a heathen value. You never know where the next bit of wisdom will come from. Keep your eyes open, guys!
Posted: Tue - March 8, 2005 at 02:48 AM