Self-reliance: A Vital Key to Successful Life, by Prince JIde Adefisan

By Prince JIde Adefisan 

Some are endowed with qualitiesand such ability that enable most people to stand alone, to be free and independent, many people choose to be learners and depend on others. We deliberately tie ourselves down with  so many self-imposed limitations that eventually we even let others do our thinking for us.

The greatest lesson that any teacher can teach is the lesson of self-reliance, teaching the student to depend on himself or herself. Well meaning parents often times thwart the opportunities for their children by making it easy to get a start in life forgetting that too many crutches contribute to weakness of spirit, mind and body.

Power in one form or another, is the object of most ambitions. Strength and power must be self-developed. We can not become strong merely by visiting a gym.  To develop the muscle we must work with it. No one can do this for us. Our mental faculties work the same way. We must put our own into and learn to depend upon self. Self-reliance is the key that open the door to strength and power. Our winners in the battle of life are the men and women who can stand alone, who believe in themselves and are not afraid to overcome obstacles that lie in their path, regardless of their magnitude. 

As we develop a keen sense of self-reliance and do the things ourselves which ought to be accomplished by ourselves, we develop the power necessary to reach higher and higher. To facilitate us in the developmet of  self-reliance it is well to constantly hold the mental thought of our being, that we were created for a little purpose which we alone can perform. Whether journey upon the sea of life be calm or stormy, we are the captains of our own ship and masters of our individual destinies or at any point in time.

Prince Adefisan Julius, a teacher, political analyst and social commentator wrote from Badagry, Lagos