5 Steps Towards Self-Sufficiency
5. Embrace the silence
What is self-sufficiency?
Self sufficiency is defined as the ability “to maintain oneself or itself without outside aid : capable of providing for one’s own needs”. — Merriam Webster
Why is that stoic life philosophy still relevant nowadays?
We live in a world where more of us have a deep desire to change the world, make a positive impact. But there is in parallel a considerable lack of self awareness and knowledge about self care among us. How then can one pretend to want to save or contribute to the world if that one cannot and does not know how to contribute to oneself? Therefore it is important to dig deeper into this way of living for those aiming to make a sustainable and sain impact.
It is by lifting up the individual wellness and empowerment that this one can efficiently contribute to the collectiveness.
Being self sufficient is different from being selfish or self-centered. It is about self responsibility and self accountability.
As one of my favorite authors Mark Manson says: “save yourself first before you can save the world”. I believe that now. Unless one can know how to save oneself, one cannot pretend to aspire to save the world. This joins the french saying “la charité bien ordonnée commence par soi même” = “the charity well ordered starts with oneself”. I used to think this was a selfish way to think, but now I understand that it is instead a healthy, empowering and sustainable way to think and approach life.
How to develop the skill of self-sufficiency?
Here is what I am still learning about self sufficiency. Big shout and thanks to Ryan Holiday for inspiration: your books and website are pure treasures for life.
1. Re evaluate things in your life and assign them their proper value
Self-sufficiency begins with identifying what’s within your control, what’s beyond, and what falls in-between. Through this categorisation, you get a big picture of things and assign them their proper value, their priority. What’s within your control should take the higher rank in priorities, in terms of both time and energy.
2. Take time to reflect
Each day, turn off all distractions and reflect/meditate about the day. It could be: morning meditation/prayer, taking a walk after lunch/dinner, or journaling in the evening. What matters is that you create space to process and think for yourself. This helps guard you from being pulled all over the place even in the places you don’t wish to find yourself in.
Humans are wired to be easily impressionable. Time to reflect will help you discover what’s meaningful to you and avoid absorbing someone else’s guiding principle as your own. And this is perhaps the most difficult skill of all: sorting through the noise and determining what’s your own.
3. Immerse yourself voluntary into “hardship” (not if you’re already into one)
We live in a fast pace world. Hyperconnected and wanting things right now. This lead us to be globally less patient. We have more hard time tackling hardships and challenges as compared to past generations. As a result we got less resilient and less disciplined (some of us). To develop this, it could be something as easy as making some tiny changes to the routines: take a new way to work, skip mandatory morning coffee or replace it by freshly pressed orange juice and ginger (this one will boost your energy in the morning — without the high and low of coffee, rich in C vitamins and immune reinforcement). Getting out of one’s comfort zone is another type of chosen hardship.
The ability to embrace a little bit of discomfort goes a long way when it comes to self-sufficiency. If you want to create something meaningful and transform yourself, it rarely comes through the path of least resistance.
4. Master a multidisciplinary approach
Explore/nourish/develop daily your curiosity while being open to new experiences. Deepen existing skills and develop new skills that are complementary to the existing ones. As you push yourself, you create more opportunities to pursue a wealth of experience across disciplines and dial in a multidisciplinary strategy.
Rich from this approach, you widen your perspective, identify your lacunes. It also guards you from false patterns and foolish attempts to apply a single model to every problem you face. If you only have a narrow range of mental models available when you negotiate the challenges inherent to life, self-sufficiency is impossible. You need multiple weapons if you want to outthink and outmaneuver obstacles.
5. Embrace the silence
Self-sufficiency is about the ability to subsist without validation. When we focus on the right things, for the right reasons, we get to a level when we don’t need external recognition each step of the way. Daily conversations are a great way to put this in practice: one doesn’t need to have an opinion about everything. It could for example be opting to eat peacefully in silence during lunch time with colleagues if the topic that is being brought up isn’t of one’s interest.
Another way to practice this is when we experience something memorable — a landscape that humbles us. Allowing that to be enough, avoiding the temptation to reach for Instagram or one’s camera is a self sufficient “act”. Not everyone needs to know every minute detail of our life. The meaning we find in that moment is worth far more than the short-term high that comes from someone mindlessly scrolling through their feed and tapping our post.
Self-sufficiency doesn’t mean we need to live off the grid. We can still enjoy the conveniences of modern life. But we should also assume responsibility for our personal wellbeing — aka welcome to adulthood.
If you want to make a measurable difference in the world, it starts with assuming responsibility for yourself. This is one of the main lessons the Stoics had to offer. You can’t create anything meaningful without first taking responsibility and transforming yourself.
If you’re a well-rounded human being, you can give more back to the world and the people around you. It starts and ends with you — ownership of oneself in terms of responsibility.
“These are the characteristics of the rational soul: self-awareness, self-examination, and self-determination. It reaps its own harvest…It succeeds in its own purpose…” — Marcus Aurelius
Philosophy theories and practices origins: Stoicism
Until next time: take good care of your gorgeous self and stay hydrated (up to 60% of the human adult body is fluids — usgs.gov)
One love.
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