Reliance

According to Dictionary.com reliance is a confident or trustful dependence meaning something or someone that can be relied on.

I always saw this word as only when I can rely on some one or if someone can rely on, but it can have such a deeper meaning. Such as my mornings rely on that coffee, or my dogs rely on me to let them outside. But if you dig deeper it can go like this; my dogs rely on me to feed them so then they rely on that food to keep them from starving in which I rely on someone to make that food to supply to them in which the makers must rely on workers to create the food to be sent out to consumers such as me and so on if you catch my drift.

Reliance is used by everyone all day long. Someone can be 100% and completely independent yet is still relying on someone or something in that day somehow. Reliance should not be a crippling factor, but something we all have and can see as a positive thing. Sometimes as kids we are taught it is bad to rely on things or others, but without this could we truly make it through every day?

When we are taught reliance is a defect we then forget what it means to be helpful and be there for one another without have selfish thoughts and complaining. One person can still be independent and have true autonomy even if reliance plays a key in some form. This word should not let us lose who we are or were, nor should it judge us if one person has more reliance then another.

Other words for reliance include confidence, trust, faith, and assurance. Aren’t these all positives? So why is it when someone depends on another it is looked at as dependence which only has been given a negative connotation and not seen as any of the words above?

I hate to admit it but at one point in time I was one sided and saw reliance as dependence in which I believed it only to be bad that if I lost any form of independence I was not me anymore, I could not be proud of me anymore, but slowly I am learning this is not true and I have to keep reminding myself of this at times…so I want to hear your thoughts, what is reliance to you?