The Sierra Leone Coat of Arms
Today 27th April 2010 marks the 49th Independence Anniversary of our darling Sierra Leone. From a still rather wintry city of Syracuse in the United States of America, I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate Sierra Leoneans all over the earth on this great day of celebration.
As we mull over the progress and lack of progress we have experienced as a nation over the last 49 years, I would like to focus this blog post on the issue of personal independence.
In his book the 7 Habits of Highly effective people, Stephen Covey explains in detail what he calls a maturity continuum. This continuum, he says starts from Dependency in the lowest end to Interdependency on the highest end; the middle point of which is Independency.
Attitude of Dependency
President Ernest Bai Koroma - Addressing the UN General Assembly
- He defines dependency as the attitude of YOU. This maturity level blames everything and everybody else for our predicaments. It always focuses on how better things would have been if they had treated us differently. Dependent people always depend on others to get what they want; they are always dependent on the external environment for the achievement of their goals. (1st Thess 4:11)
Do you frequently catch yourself constantly blaming things and people and the Government for the results of your life? You could be living in the dependency dreamland.
Attitude of Independency
Stephen Covey defines the word symbol for this attitude as I. it is the attitude of self reliance and self confidence. Independent people can get what they want with their own efforts. At the negative end, these people just care about themselves and careless about what happens to others. Do you fall under this category? One wonders how much had gone bad in the last 49 years as a result of negatively independent people.
Attitude of Interdependency
The word symbol for interdependency is WE. This is the team spirit; the spirit of cooperation. Interdependent people require their own efforts and the cooperation of others to get what they want. (Phil 2:4)
The Sierra Leone Flag
Which is the greatest?
It does not take much thoughts to realise how much more mature interdependency is. It also does not take a rocket scientist to realise that you cannot really be interdependent until you are first independent.
This why independence is such a major achievement, people cease to be victims of their external environment.
Let us assume that I am emotionally and financially dependent on you as my supervisor, my boss, my father or teacher in school; my grade, my promotion and my salary are functions of your judgement; my sense of worth also comes from you.
If I am very dependent this way, would I be a very cooperative member of your team? You bet. Would I give you objective feedback about things that are going wrong or feedback about your blind spots? Fat chance!
Dependent people cannot give objective feedback; they cannot risk that kind of vulnerability and possibly compromising their career path or disrupt parasitic relationships. We thus cannot tell the president or the paramount chief that they are wrong if we see our well being as solely dependent on them; and this flows down the line in many relationships with damaging consequences for our nation.
Sir Milton Margai - Prime Minister at Independence
One way out of Dependency – Financial Independence
A Financially independent person is not necessarily a financially wealthy person. Some wealthy people are financially dependent on their wealth. If the wealth is lost or somehow devalued for any reason, they are wiped out.
A financially independent person is one who has so many skills and capacity; so many options that they can take for employment; they are capable of providing a livelihood for themselves and their loved ones in many different ways – so they respect their boss but are not scared of them. They comply with the rules but are very forthright and courageous to be objectively critical about the happenings around them – because they are independent.
An independent person’s sense of worth does not come from other people’s opinions. It comes basically from within them; from their intrinsic sources of personal security. Fundamentally, it comes from their integrity to their own value systems.
What if our lives were totally a product of our value systems? What if we would carry inside of us, enough inward security that we are a function of our values, driven by our faith in God rather than the physical or social conditions that we may encounter?
The Freetown Cotton Tree in 1970
Maturing to interdependence
We do not just want to be right and isolated and independent all the time; as the very nature of life is interdependent. (Phil 2:4)
The ash from the volcano in Iceland earlier this month grounded all flights in the European airspace for a whole week, with financial repercussion for even florists in Kenya.
One of our greatest cravings in life is for interdependence. We are highly interdependent beings; but we can only achieve interdependence if we first become independent; intellectually, emotionally, financially…… (2nd Cor 9:8)
Are you truly, positively Independent?
Happy Independence Anniversary from Ellen, Josetta, Musu and Joe Abass.
