photo by art ascii(paul)

If there is some cosmic, overarching lesson in my life that I am supposed to learn, it seems to be that when it comes down to it, the only person I can truly count on is myself.

This is the lesson that has been beaten into me over and over and over again. And just when I think it’s the last time I have to learn it, I learn it again. Sure, I’ve learned my fair share of hard lessons just like the next person, many of which have taken more than one go around before I get the hint. But none have been so prominent and recurring as this one.

As the saying goes, you’re born alone and you die alone. In between we all get the chance to share and experience our lives with others. But when all is said and done, we’re still navigating through our lives on our own. We’ll meet some amazing people along the way. Some of them will be around for a long time, others will appear and disappear from our lives before we even realize it. Some will help us, some will hurt us. Many will do both. Some will go out of their way to boost our morale, to open doors of opportunity to us, to listen when we need to vent. Some will do anything to get ahead of us, manipulate our good intentions, or damage our reputations. A precious few will say they would do anything for our benefit, and even mean it.

But the fact remains: at the end of the day we’re only responsible for ourselves, we only have to answer to ourselves, and we can only, truly, fully count on ourselves. Friends and family, partners and lovers, they are beautiful things to have in our lives. But the healthiest among them will make decisions that, though they may take your feelings and desires into consideration, ultimately come down to what they need for themselves. And that won’t always align with your own agenda.

So what does this mean? Does this mean that we’re born alone, we die alone, and we live the whole stretch of life in between alone as well? I suppose on some level the answer to that is yes. But the true takeaway from any lesson shouldn’t be the negatives. I think what it means is that if we can only count on ourselves to make the decisions that will help us lead fulfilling and virtuous lives, we have no choice but to have an incredible amount of faith and belief in ourselves. We have to realize that our lives will only become the lives we want if we make them that way. If we choose for that to happen to ourselves. Not if we hope others will figure that out for us.

People have faith in all sorts of things, but I think faith in ourselves is far and away the most important of all of them. Not only will it lead you in the right direction, it will force you to take responsibility for your own actions. It will prop you up when a friend’s support falls through. It will give you confidence when a family member unwittingly discourages you. It will light the way when everything and everyone else has left it dark. And it just may be the only type of faith that isn’t based on something unprovable that you can’t help but question. It is based on something as real as the universe that’s in your mind: you.

And so I keep learning this lesson. But the more I learn it, the more I can accept it. The more I’m hurt by the tough love this lesson teaches me, the more I add to the self love I’ve spent so many years struggling to build. And the more it threatens to harden the cynic in me, the more confidence I gain that I will be just fine. Because I know I can count on myself, even if I fuck up every now and then. And if I can’t count on myself, who can I count on?