Independent-What it means?

Common man defines being independent as "I like to do what I want to do". Independent, the dictionary gives more than a dozen definitions as nouns and adjectives. As an young child when I was told either to do something or asked to stop doing something, I always felt, why my parents were not allowing me to do what I wanted. Sure enough, you all felt the same at some point in your life. As we grew, we felt that we were not on our own for anything and we were always dependent on others for everything. What a frustration!!! Since then we started thinking "when do I become independent", "why can’t I be on my own", "why does someone dictate me" "what to do and what not." These questions keep on adding up, but we look for ways to get away from them. "When I grow up, when I have my own job, when I am all by myself, I will be independent." Is it all? Can we really be independent after having all these? Apart from what we already have around us and taken for granted (air to breathe, water to drink, trees for shade, clouds for rain...), we are also dependent on living beings. Think for a minute that we are all by ourselves, but we cannot sit idle nor live aloof. We need a TV or a computer or a cell phone to spend (or kill) our time. See, we are dependent on some thing outside, that is technology. We need education to have good jobs, so we are dependent on schooling system. Don't we need a real world to find a job? Once we find a job we start piling up our dreams while struggling to fulfill all that we dreamt since childhood. To save our jobs we again depend on the means to cling on to it, by trying to overdo and impress our bosses. As if it is not enough, to have social life we look for friends, near and dear. We mutually depend on each other to have fun and fantasy. Sorry, I forgot about our emotional plane. We look for a good family life and the joy we get out of it. How about a "significant other" who can understand my emotions! The list goes on. These are your degrees of 'freedom', if I may say so. Now, are you really "INDEPENDENT"?  Think about it!

“Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.”

-George Bernard Shaw