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Editor’s note: This is a guest article by Kyle Eschenroeder, author of <\/em>The Pocket Guide to Self-Reliance<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.\u201d <\/span>\u2015Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The goal of self-reliance is to achieve sovereignty in our connected, civilized world. It\u2019s to remember that your judgments are valid — even if, <\/span>especially <\/span><\/i>if, they\u2019re unpopular. It\u2019s remembering you don\u2019t need to be on a side, that the team colors people try to throw on you may not actually represent who you are.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s no magic bullet for self-reliance. There\u2019s no step-by-step system to achieve it. There are, however, some practices that will help us move towards it. I, along with countless others, have found journaling to be a particularly effective one.<\/span><\/p>\n Below you\u2019ll find 31 journaling prompts designed to help nudge you toward self-reliance. They\u2019ll help you think about and articulate pieces of yourself you might not have considered before — at least not explicitly. They\u2019ll help you recognize your beliefs and find areas where you\u2019re not sure what you believe. They\u2019ll help you think about situations you\u2019re in and decisions you\u2019re making and what to do about them. In general, they\u2019ll just help you look in the right direction.<\/span><\/p>\n The aim is to help you go deeper into yourself so that you might better reset your relationships to yourself, the world, and the people you spend time with.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019d recommend writing on each prompt for at least twenty minutes. It\u2019s likely that these will serve as jumping-off points and you\u2019ll end your writing session on a completely different topic having followed your ideas on an open-ended — and self-reliant — course.<\/span><\/p>\n You can start working on these prompts at any time, and do as many a day as you\u2019d like (though I don\u2019t recommend tackling more than two a day, to make sure you give each sufficient space and time for reflection). However, the number of prompts — 31 — makes them particularly suitable for tackling one a day as part of a month-long exercise. Commit to making the 31 days ahead the month where you finally begin to live a life in which you make decisions with primary respect to your own experience of the world. When you finally begin to pay less attention to the opinions of others, and start really being true to yourself. When you finally start <\/span>trusting<\/span><\/i> yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another.\u201d \u2015Jiddu Krishnamurti<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What is something you have or are pursuing, that other people say is worthwhile, but you haven’t found valuable? Do you continue to pursue it based on the promises of others?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe virtue in most request is conformity.\u201d \u2015Emerson<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPeople say that what we\u2019re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what we\u2019re really seeking. I think that what we\u2019re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.\u201d <\/span>\u2015Joseph Campbell<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Where do you find the most meaning in life and feel the most fully alive? Is there something you\u2019d love to do but don\u2019t because the world thinks it\u2019s silly or worthless or wrong? Is there anything you do that you consider virtuous yet the world looks down on? How do you handle the tension?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI would write on the lintels of the doorpost, <\/span>Whim<\/span><\/i>. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation.\u201d \u2015Emerson<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n If we don\u2019t trust our whims to guide our exploration of possibilities for our lives, we\u2019ll quickly find ourselves relying on others for answers.<\/span><\/p>\n What areas of your life have you shut off to whims? Are there any you\u2019ve written off? How might you try following them responsibly? (Is it writing an outline for a ridiculous-sounding blog post? Picking up that book that feels \u201cunproductive\u201d? Joining the boxing gym you pass daily? Asking that girl out you\u2019ve had your eye on? Booking the trip you\u2019ve been thinking about?)<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force.\u201d \u2015Emerson<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What pieces of your old identity do you hold onto that are no longer serving you or you no longer believe in wholeheartedly? Are they worth letting go of?<\/span><\/p>\n To compete is to choose to play somebody else\u2019s game. This can be a massive source of energy, but it\u2019s also a dangerous game. The billionaire investor and founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, said that the fierce competition in his college career nearly kept him from doing what he actually was meant to do. He later wrote in <\/span>Zero to One<\/span><\/i><\/a>, \u201cAll failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n When we\u2019re locked in competition we tend to obsess on doing the same thing but faster, bigger, or cheaper. Competition can blind us to opportunities to truly distinguish ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, the fiercer the competition, the more similar things get. Harvard Professor Youngme Moon writes in her book <\/span>Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd <\/span><\/i><\/a>that, \u201cThe dynamic [of competition] is not unlike a popularity contest in which everyone tries to win by being equal parts friendly, happy, active, and fun. Or an election campaign in which all the candidates try to be charming, serious, humble, and strong. Once everyone starts doing it, no one stands out.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Put simply, Moon has found that, \u201cThe more diligently firms compete with each other, the less differentiated they can become.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Even more often than businesses, individual lives are ruined by being too preoccupied with competition to look around. Where are you competing in your life that you don\u2019t actually want to be (e.g., money, audience, position, possessions, looks, awards, travel, experiences etc.)? If you weren\u2019t worried about winning that, what would you focus on? <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.\u201d \u2015Emerson<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Self-reliance often means following our quiet, inner voice more faithfully. It means not just listening to what we <\/span>say<\/span><\/i>, or even to what we <\/span>think<\/span><\/i>, but paying more attention to what usually lies beneath our consciousness. Picasso himself knew that what he wanted to express wasn\u2019t his own idea:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTo know what you\u2019re going to draw, you have to begin drawing. . . . When I find myself facing a blank page, that\u2019s always going through my head. What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Picasso wasn\u2019t aiming to express <\/span>his <\/span><\/i>ideas but ideas that seemed to be beyond him. He understood that self-reliance wasn\u2019t about absolute control and knowing the answer ahead of time, but diving into the unknown and trusting himself to navigate.<\/span><\/p>\n Write about a time you listened to that inner voice, then a time you ignored it. How did each turn out? How did the conversations with your inner voice differ? How can you become better attuned to those subtle nudgings?<\/span><\/p>\n Ultimately, we come to self-reliance by <\/span>forgetting <\/span><\/i>ourselves. It\u2019s the kind of self-trust many new parents feel because they finally have this thing outside themselves that matters much more than themselves. We can access it by caring about anything properly (a project, a movement, an idea, a person, etc.).<\/span><\/p>\n Milton Mayeroff describes this dynamic in <\/span>On Caring<\/a>:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cDirection that comes from the growth of the other should not be confused with being \u2018other directed,\u2019 where this refers to the kind of conformity in which I lose touch with both myself and the other. Rather, by following the growth of the other, I am more responsive to myself, just as the musician is more in touch with himself when he is absorbed in the needs of the music.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ironically, no matter how physically self-reliant we become, if we never truly care for something outside of ourselves we\u2019ll never become self-reliant. <\/span><\/p>\n What do you care most about? As in, what do you give yourself to most freely? How could you care for it a little more perfectly? How does caring for this thing outside yourself actually help you trust yourself more? <\/span><\/p>\n \u201c[W]e go to far less trouble about making ourselves happy than about appearing to be so.\u201d \u2015La Rochefoucauld<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.\u201d \u2015Emerson<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Many times we want what we want for no other reason than other people want it!<\/span><\/p>\n Take time today to ask what you want to want. Not what you want, but what you <\/span>want <\/span><\/i>to want. <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Some example shifts: from wanting attention to wanting to help; from wanting an easy life to wanting the struggle; from wanting fame to wanting relationships. <\/span><\/p>\n Not all these sets are mutually exclusive, but one usually comes at the cost of the other. If you could choose your desires, what would they be?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt is easy in the world to live after the world\u2019s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.\u201d \u2015Emerson<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Our posture toward the information we take in matters a lot. <\/span><\/p>\n How do you approach your nonfiction reading (offline and online)? How do you treat different authors or personalities? Are you having a conversation with the articles and books you read? Are you marking disagreements you have with them? Are you making connections between them?<\/span><\/p>\n Self-reliance doesn\u2019t demand that you make public every belief you hold. If you were to talk openly about every controversial opinion you have you\u2019d be pressured to defend those ideas as well. For some, that could turn into a full-time job.<\/span><\/p>\n What are your most controversial opinions? Why do you believe them? Even if they\u2019re not worth talking about publicly, it\u2019s worth exploring them yourself. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not a spectacle.\u201d \u2015Emerson<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Is your life a show you\u2019re putting on for others? Do you use social media to connect with others or to erect a facade? <\/span><\/p>\n How would you live differently if it wasn\u2019t about the show but about creating the best life for you, your loved ones, and the other humans you share this planet with?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.\u201d \u2014Warren Buffett<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n An inner scorecard is something we can create ourselves and then look at to know whether or not we\u2019re doing well. An outer scorecard is something the world creates for us and then judges us by. If we accept an outer scorecard we forfeit our self-reliance.<\/span><\/p>\n In investing, Buffett has often acted against the crowd — sometimes losing money when others are winning and missing out on massive trends — and has credited his inner scorecard for helping him stay the course when otherwise he might have abandoned ship.<\/span><\/p>\n Today, make a draft of your internal scorecard. Make a list of things that will help you know whether you\u2019re on the right course — even if the world\u2019s outer scorecard can\u2019t see the wins.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEnvy is ignorance.\u201d \u2014Emerson<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Envy of someone\u2019s wealth is ignorance of the relationships, life experiences, and health that may have been sacrificed to gain it. Envy of someone\u2019s power is ignorance of the tragic sense of inadequacy that may have provided the drive to achieve it.<\/span><\/p>\n Even though we often use Social Media Highlight Reels to gauge a life, we know we shouldn\u2019t. Divorces can be preceded by a slew of romantic travel pictures. Few go to Facebook to talk about their crippling mental illnesses. One doesn\u2019t post updates about familial turmoil online.<\/span><\/p>\n Make a list of people you envy. <\/span><\/p>\n Would you trade places with them? Would you give up your whole life for their whole life? Would you switch spouses, health, history, mental health, etc. with them? What are the potential downsides to their position in life? What sacrifices might you have to make in order to get the piece of their life you want?<\/span><\/p>\n Self-reliance isn\u2019t standing alone. Asking for help from friends, family, or professionals is an important skill. <\/span><\/p>\n Joseph Campbell has said that, \u201cThe problem of the psychiatrist is to disintegrate [the] dragon, break him up, so that you may expand to a larger field of relationships.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not about giving up or using other people as crutches. It\u2019s about being self-aware enough to know when you need a hand or where you could use an outside opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n How could you better use the help of those around you? Where and how is your ego holding you back from getting assistance?<\/span><\/p>\n List a few big events from your past that caused you suffering. Was there some growth — or even some good — that came from them? What growth? What good?<\/span><\/p>\n More challenging: can you do this with the situations that are <\/span>currently <\/span><\/i>causing you suffering? <\/span><\/p>\n This is a baby step toward Nietzsche’s <\/span>amor fati <\/span><\/i>— the love of your fate. Which is no small thing:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy formula for human greatness is amor fati: that one wants to have nothing different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear the necessary, still less to conceal it . . . but to love it.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In <\/span>The Gay Science<\/span><\/i><\/a>, Friedrich Nietzsche introduces the idea of \u201cEternal Return\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: \u2018This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence \u2014 even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!'”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Basically, Nietzsche asks the reader to imagine repeating this life, as it is lived this time, over and over again for eternity. Nothing would change. You couldn\u2019t make different decisions or take on different attitudes. And you wouldn\u2019t be conscious that you\u2019re <\/span>re<\/span><\/i>living your life. <\/span><\/p>\n If you knew you would undergo an endless cycle of Eternal Return, what changes in your attitudes and actions would you make to your life right now? If there are things in your life you wouldn’t want to repeat for eternity, why haven\u2019t you changed them yet? Remember, the goal is not just to endure this life, but to love it — <\/span>all<\/span><\/i> of it. To amor fati.<\/span><\/p>\nDay 1<\/h3>\n
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