Independence is an illusion

For many decades, I worked for companies. I defined my work by those organizations and their goals. That’s was always a tradeoff.

For the last ten years, I’ve worked for myself, ostensibly independent. I found my own clients, set my own hours, generated my own revenue, and made my own choices. It’s a great way remain productive at the end a career, and I highly recommend it.

But lately I’ve realized just how much I’m not completely independent.

I’m highly dependent on my family. I could not do this alone. My emotional health is dependent on the time and challenges I share with my wife. (She’s independent too — she’s an artist — but we both know that our spiritual and social well-being depends on each other.) And it’s not just emotions; if we didn’t share the joys and sorrows of cooking, maintaining our health, improving our house, and embracing the best of life together, life would be pretty barren. It’s not just us — I draw meaning and support from my relationships with my adult children, my mother, and my siblings. And I also need my family as an audience for my endless jokes — I’m completely dependent on that.

I’m dependent on my clients. I don’t just mean for money. They give me purpose. They give me a reason to exercise my talents to help others do something worthwhile. They stimulate me and give me a chance to contribute to diverse projects that lift up the world. The best thing about them is how unlike me they are: they give me a chance to participate, at least from time to time, in their completely different worlds and priorities. Without that I might be more independent, but life would certainly be more boring.

I’ve been surprised at how dependent I am on my professional network. Every “independent” practitioner needs help, whether that’s generating leads, building a web site, finding and leveraging missing expertise in a project, or road-testing ideas. But it goes a lot further than that. I’m an informal member of lots of groups of fascinating people: authors, ex-analysts, survey researchers, ghostwriters, Maine business professionals, actively working seniors. We answer each other’s questions and validate each other’s existence. Without my network, I’d be lost at sea.

When I left my last job ten years ago, I knew that for me, working for a company fulfilled a social need as much as an economic one. I wondered what would take the place of that community. I never realized how much working on my own would give me the chance to become more deeply interconnected with my family, my freelance work, and my far-flung network of fellow thinkers.

You, too

I’m quite dependent on you, my readers. Without you, I’d have little reason to keep plowing ahead, thinking, and breaking new intellectual ground.

If anything, I’m more dependent in my independence than I ever was in my employment. The diversity of my dependence makes it stronger; I can lose bits of it here and there and replace them while the rest of my connections remain strong.

Independence is a great way to be. Just don’t try to do it alone.