My father once said — The only thing you expect should be what you can give yourself.
Self-reliance is an important attitude to adopt for the sake of not being disappointed, hurt or depressed in the long run.
It is when you have introspectively ascertained what your strengths are and use them to your advantage to cope with whatever life throws at you.
Self-reliance permits you to “cut your coat according to your size” in every aspect of your life — mentally, emotionally, psychologically you name it.
It helps you to understand what to expect and what not to. Therefore when you have expectations for anything, you are rest assured that you are capable of giving it in the first place.
These said expectations span across many needful innate things in life; (animate and inanimate) but mostly things like happiness, stability, peace of mind, good health, growth, development and so on.
You cannot expect to get joy or happiness from someone or something else. It is something you cultivate from within or better still admit you’re the one stopping yourself from achieving it.
You cannot expect growth from an entity, work and/or family organization when you aren’t fulfilling your own quota within — lest you contradict yourself.
You cannot be asking for stability when right now, you’re the best person to give it to yourself.
Learn to differentiate internal from external values of things that will make your life well living and you’ll realize that the majority of the things you need are already with and in you.
That’s what the propagation of self-reliance looks like.
To recapitulate,
When you have a strong sense of self, you would know what you have and what you don’t as capabilities and that will allow you to tailor your expectations and determine which truly is within your control and not. That way, you’ll seldom be upset, hurt, disappointed or depressed from not achieving the desirable(s).
Remember, you cannot expect what you can’t even give yourself.
