Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and actinterdependently may be good individual producers, but they won't be good leaders or team players

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make. Dependent people cannot choose to become interdependent. They don’t have the character to do it; they don’t own enough of themselves.

On the maturity continuum, dependence is the paradigm of you — you take care of me; you come through for me; you didn’t come through; I blame you for the results. Independence is the paradigm of I — I can do it; I am responsible; I am self-reliant; I can choose. Interdependence is the paradigm of we — we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together. Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.

The little-understood concept of interdependence appears to many to smack of dependence, and therefore, we find people, often for selfish reasons, leaving their marriages, abandoning their children, and forsaking all kinds of social responsibility — all in the name of independence.

We have a tendency to romanticize independence and see autonomy as a virtue. In my experience, such a view is a career killer. Autonomy is a life vest made out of sand. Independent people who do not have the skills to think and act interdependently may still be good individual producers, but they won’t be seen as good leaders or team players.

Interdependence is a far more mature, more advanced concept. If I am physically interdependent, I am self-reliant and capable, but I also realize that you and I working together can accomplish far more than, even at my best, I could accomplish alone. If I am emotionally interdependent, I derive a great sense of worth within myself, but I also recognize the need for love, for giving, and for receiving love from others. If I am intellectually interdependent, I realize that I need the best thinking of other people to join with my own.

Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance.

If I am intellectually interdependent, I realize that I need the best thinking of other people to join with my own.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

Be independent of the good opinion of other people.

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. Without interrelation with society he cannot realize his oneness with the universe or suppress his egotism. His social interdependence enables him to test his faith and to prove himself on the touchstone of reality.

Do not crave to know the views of others, nor base your intent thereon. To think independently for yourself is a sign of fearlessness.

We live in a completely interdependent world, which simply means we can not escape each other. How we respond to AIDS depends, in part, on whether we understand this interdependence. It is not someone else's problem. This is everybody's problem.