Growing your “Independence”

As you get to know yourself better, you will notice your preferences more and more.  You prefer certain restaurants.  You enjoy some people more than others.  You like listening to the news while you eat your breakfast.  There are no right or wrong preferences.  They are simply your way of living life, your unique way of being yourself.

The next step in Independence is to make your preferences important.  If you find you want to eat a ham sandwich for lunch, perhaps you should consider riding to your favorite deli and ordering one instead of eating the cold pizza in the fridge.  I know it doesn’t matter that much.  The pizza is there. It doesn’t require any effort and it will fill you up.  But choosing to get the sandwich signals to yourself and to the world that you believe you are important enough to expend the energy to get what you want.  That is very important!  Why would you expect others to think you are important if you don’t treat yourself as such?

I am not advocating that you be selfish.  If is often far more important to express your preferences than to insist on having them met.  You and your friend might have plans to go to the movies together.  Your friend asks what movie you want to see.  Don’t take the easy route and say, “I don’t care.  What do you want to see?”  Instead, consider what movie you truly want to see.  “I want to see the newest Marvel movie”.  Your friend then tells you she just saw that movie last week and doesn’t want to see it again.  She suggests a few other movies that interest her, and you pick one of those.  You may value spending time with your friend over seeing the Marvel movie and so are willing to forgo your preference, but, at least, you expressed it.

You may discover that such a simple idea as expressing your preferences turns out to be more difficult than you imagined.  Not only will friends and family notice something different about you, but they might also begin to take offense.  You are “breaking the rules” of social convention.  You are beginning to stand out.  While that might be somewhat off-putting to some, you should be encouraged at this first sign that you are beginning to stand out as YOU!