defining independence

 Independence is considered a positive attribute to strive towards. But if you ask people to define independence, you may find that many have trouble explaining , it seems that for many it is a  concept. 

Independence can be divided up into different categories of independence. The main categories are: Mental Independence, Behavioural Independence and Survival-based Independence.

1.) Mental Independence
An important distinction exists between independent thinking and rebellious thinking. Rebelling against someone else’s ideas means that you purposefully take the exact opposite stance to someone’s ideas, and so their ideas are ultimately controlling yours.

Mental independence is being able to think for yourself, regardless of what others think and say. It involves accessing your internal resources, listening to your inner voice, weighing up all the facts and feelings you’ve accumulated, and forming opinions based on this. Mental independence is the basis of independent thinking, independent decision-making, and leads to independent actions and behaviour.

2.) Behavioural Independence
Independent behaviour is partly based on mental independence, because it is only after you can think independently, that you can make independent choices in life from what to eat, to what you choose to do for a living. In other words, mental independence enables you to act independently.
Behavioural independence also involves freedom from control or influence of others.

3.) Survival-based Independence

The ultimate point of independence is being equipped to look after yourself to enable your successful survival. In our world, this means:

• - Financial independence: This involves earning money ourselves to allow us to buy food and pay for shelter
• - Safety-related Independence: This involves knowing how to maintain your safety, how to avoid dangerous situations and how to handle them if they occur.
• - Self-care-related Independence: This entails knowing how to look after yourself to maintain your good health and fitness, and taking care of all your needs, including social ones-self-care is having a healthy social life,group interdependence.
• Being independent does not mean living a solitary life and never asking for help. Asking for help only becomes dependence if one person uses the other without the intention of giving anything back. Dependence also occurs when a person lacks the intention of learning to become self-sufficient.

..anonymous source