Self of Self Stability

The old proverb says that the tree longs to be still, yet the wind refuses to rest. Most of us at some point in our lives yearn for stillness, for peace, for a moment of quiet where nothing presses on us. Yet life seldom grants it. The winds of circumstance, of other people’s choices, of fate, of time itself, move whether we consent or not. This uninvited movement reminds us of something we would rather forget: life does not bend completely to human will. The ups and downs, the bright mornings of success and the long shadows of disappointment, come and go as surely as the seasons. None of us, however strong or careful, gets to control the weather. What we can control is how we row the boat we are given. And to row steadily across rough seas, we need two oars. One is the security we feel when we place trust outward, in people, structures, and the external world. The other is the stability we feel when we place trust inward, in ourselves, in our own sense of being someone who can stand upright even when the wind shifts direction. Without both oars, we spin in circles, endlessly turned by the current.

At the centre of all this is the question of self. Not in a dry, philosophical way, but in the way that matters in daily life: how we feel about ourselves, what anchors us when nothing outside seems dependable, and how much we can trust our own voice when others are loud around us. Too often, we confuse the outer box with the inner gift. Our appearance, the way we dress, the way others see us, is like the wrapping paper. It can be beautiful, striking, carefully put together, and it matters. There is nothing wrong with wanting to present ourselves in a way that feels fitting. But the gift is not the wrapping. The gift is the sense of self. That inner box holds our desires, our decisions, the ways we try to better ourselves, and the many paths we take to live. If that inner box is full, then what spills outwards into the world - our actions, our words, our presence - has weight. If it is empty, then no amount of wrapping can conceal the hollowness.

This distinction matters because many people spend their lives polishing the outside while ignoring the inside. They build a tent that looks impressive, but one that is held up by poles provided by others: the expectations of parents, the opinions of peers, the rules of a group they belong to. As long as those poles stay in place, the tent stands. But the moment the supports are removed, when the parent no longer approves, the group disbands, the friend withdraws, the tent collapses. It cannot hold itself. I have seen it countless times in therapy, in friendships, and in my own reflections. A person looks steady on the surface, but their steadiness is borrowed. When the lender takes back the supports, the collapse is sudden and painful.

That collapse leaves people vulnerable to depression, to self-doubt that eats away at every decision, to a loneliness that no crowd can cure, and to the gnawing anxiety of being untethered. Some respond by desperately seeking new supports. They latch on to a person, or a belief system, or a group identity, not because it truly fits them but because it offers scaffolding. They become dependent on that borrowed structure to hold up their sense of self. It works for a while. The tent stands again, from a distance it looks fine. But the hollowness remains, and the dependency deepens. Their inner box is still empty, and they are lending it out for others to fill. In that situation, life becomes about renting an identity rather than owning one. And that is a fragile way to live.

Self-cultivation is the opposite of this dependency. It is not about cutting ourselves off from others. No one flourishes in isolation. The focus is about learning how to nourish the inside of the box so that the outside is not a facade. It is about developing a kind of self-control, which does not mean suppressing every feeling, but rather learning how to hold our inner storms in such a way that they do not sink the boat. Struggle is part of this. Struggle is not wasted; it is a teacher. To wrestle with our impulses, to endure frustration, to keep rowing when the waters are rough, builds a muscle of the spirit. Out of that comes accomplishment, the quiet pride of knowing we have survived thorny paths and strong rivers. That kind of accomplishment cannot be handed to us by others, nor can it be borrowed. It is the result of facing difficulty and still choosing to steer our own course.

Think of it in simple terms. If you live next door to a chef who is generous, they might offer you free soup every day. For a time, it sustains you. But eventually, the question must be asked: are you going to live your entire life on soup cooked by another person, or will you learn how to make your own? At some point, self-respect demands that we nourish ourselves from within. The external gift, the neighbour’s kindness, is valuable, but it cannot replace the need to cultivate our own nourishment. And the same is true for the sense of self. If we only feed it from external sources, we will always be dependent on those sources, and when they vanish, we will starve.

This is not to say that external forces are unimportant. They are essential. Human beings are not solitary creatures. We need the love of family, the affection of a partner, the appreciation of friends, the respect of colleagues. These things warm us, strengthen us, and add richness to our lives. But the key is balance. To live only on external support is to risk collapse when it disappears. To live only on internal strength is to risk becoming cut off, rigid, unable to accept help or love from others. Both extremes are damaging. The balance lies in allowing external support to enrich us without letting it substitute for internal solidity. External care should be seasoning, not the whole meal. Without that balance, life tips into dependence on the one hand or isolation on the other.

The measure of kindness begins with the way we treat ourselves. If we cannot extend patience, gentleness, and care inward, then our outward kindness to others often becomes strained, or it becomes a way to earn validation rather than a gift freely given. Knowledge, too, begins with the self. We can read every book and hear every lecture, but if we do not know ourselves, what we truly like, what we fear, what standards we are using to call something good or bad, then knowledge stays superficial. Life asks us to come closer to ourselves, to examine what we have carried unquestioned, to ask whether our comfort zones are truly our own or whether they are borrowed from someone else’s measure. Over the years, comfort zones should change, shrink in some places, expand in others, as we learn and grow. If they do not, it may be because we never reevaluated them, never asked who first drew the lines and whether we still agree with them.

I recall a patient I worked with some years ago, a young woman who embodied these questions in a very raw way. She came to therapy carrying a deep loneliness and a sense that she did not know who she was. At university, surrounded by new friends, she felt alive for the first time. She joined their activities, went along with their interests, and through that she experienced joy. But the pandemic arrived, and the university closed its doors, sending students home. Overnight, her external supports vanished. The friends were gone, the activities stopped, and the routines dissolved. She fell into a depression that frightened her. It became clear in therapy that much of the life she thought was hers had been created by others. She had been, in her own words, like a leaf carried by the wind. While the wind blew, she floated, sometimes even soared. But when the wind ceased, she dropped, powerless to direct her fall. She had mistaken the wind for her own wings. She had lent her inner space to others, and when they withdrew, she discovered she had never truly filled it herself.

Her story is not unusual. Many people spend years being carried by winds they do not control. When the winds are favourable, life feels rich. But when they shift, when circumstances change, when the supports fall away, the absence of self becomes painfully obvious. The challenge is to grow wings rather than waiting for wind. Wings take effort. They require us to face fears, to risk clumsy first attempts, to learn the slow discipline of flapping against resistance. But wings give us choice. They allow us to direct our movement, not perfectly, not without difficulty, but with a sense that the course we take is ours.

This is why self-cultivation cannot be reduced to a slogan or a trick. It is not about perfect confidence or constant calm. It is about doing the patient work of filling the inner box, of nourishing ourselves with values we truly believe, desires that are genuinely ours, and decisions that reflect our considered will. It means questioning the standards we inherited, recognising the fears that hold us back, and choosing deliberately which influences to let in and which to set aside. It is work that never finishes, but it is work that makes us resilient. With a nourished self, we can receive the kindness of others without becoming dependent, and we can withstand the withdrawal of support without crumbling.

When I think about all this, I picture the old image of a traveller on a long road. The traveller meets many people, some stay close for a while, some drift away, some pass by briefly. That is life. But the deeper question is: how close has the traveller stayed to themselves? How much distance has grown between them and their own core? Have they taken the time to ask themselves what they love, why they love it, how much they have invested in it? Have they allowed themselves to expand into new spaces, or have they left whole regions outside their comfort zones, never to be reevaluated? These are the questions that keep the self alive, that prevent the hollowing out of the box. They are not questions to be answered once and filed away, but to be asked again and again as life changes.

The tree and the wind, the oars and the boat, the box and the gift, these are all images pointing to the same truth. Life is full of external movement, of winds we cannot stop, of supports that come and go. We cannot make the tree still, but we can learn to plant our roots deep. We cannot stop the waves, but we can learn to row with both oars. We cannot prevent others from leaving, but we can fill our own box so that emptiness does not consume us. That is the path of cultivating a self that is not dependent, not hollow, not merely a leaf in the wind. It is the path of becoming someone who can stand even when the poles fall, who can fly even when the air is still, who can live with both strength and openness, balancing the gifts of others with the nourishment we give ourselves.