Strings attached

"If I found a job, a project, an idea or a person I wanted-I'd have to depend on the whole world. Everything has strings leading to everything else. We're all so tied together. We're all in a net, the net is waiting, and we're pushed into it by one single desire. You want a thing and it's precious to you. Do you know who is standing ready to tear it out of your hands? You can't know, it may be so involved and so far away, but someone is ready, and you're afraid of them all. And you cringe and you crawl and you beg and you accept them-just so they'll let you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept."


No, those are definitely not my words. That is an extract from "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. Undoubtedly one of the best books that I have read. The book has so many varied characters. Each is defined by its flaws and its strength. Among the many powerful dialogues in the book, this one hasn't left my memory. It is the absolute brutal truth of life. The only thing that we have in our hands is our freedom. As long as we stay detached from everybody around yet enjoy their company and provide good company to them, we are free. As soon as we desire somebody, love somebody, we become dependent on that one person and indirectly to so many other people. Our happiness becomes completely dependent on them. Our freedom is no more ours.
Their thoughts govern our minds and we ourselves give them the power to hurt us and cause pain. As long as you depend only upon yourself, your life is yours and so is your happiness and your failures. You are at no one's mercy but your own. There is always someone waiting around the next corner of your life to wrench your happiness away from you. Happiness never lasts. It will if it is yours. Share your happiness with everybody around but don't expect, don't get attached. Life is short and if it is spent depending on others, it cannot be lived fully.
Although these are perfectly correct, unfortunately the human heart does not permit it. As much as we try to stay detached and not let others around us affect us, somehow or the other they manage to get to us and be a factor that determines our happiness or sadness. Emotional fools that we are. All we can do is try to achieve a balance on our dependence on others and on ourselves. All the best!