Independence takes on a different meaning when it follows the painful price of dependence.
That's true at the national level, and it's true at the personal level.
-
I wasn't always independent.
A year after our wedding, we bought a small apartment and took on significant debt to finance the purchase.
My wife was still an undergraduate student, and I was studying for rabbinic ordination. We were never overdrawn, but we had no money to spare and lived frugally.
Every morning for three years, I worked as an escort on a transport van that took children with special needs to kindergartens across the city. The job meant waking up at five-thirty in the morning, a half-hour walk, and then two more hours of bumping along the roads. On Fridays, I also accompanied the children on the ride home.
The monthly pay ranged from 1,500 to 3,000 NIS depending on the route — and for me, that money was essential.
-
Working on the road, side by side with drivers, is an exhausting and grinding experience. Some of them were rude, rough, and verbally aggressive, and those mornings weighed on me for the rest of the day.
I quit on a split-second decision. I forced myself to send the resignation message without thinking, and to figure out my next steps afterward.
It happened at a peak moment of frustration, after I arrived at work only to discover I had come for nothing — no one had bothered to notify me — and then had to sit in traffic on the way home. It was the right decision, and perhaps a shame I hadn't made it sooner.
-
The self-employed don't work less than salaried employees — sometimes they work far more.
The self-employed don't earn more than salaried employees — sometimes they earn far less.
But independence is a value in its own right. It is the understanding that we are the masters of our own fate, and that everything that happens to us is the result of a personal choice and a cost-benefit calculation.
Independence isn't expressed by registering as self-employed with the tax authority — it's expressed in knowing that we deserve to be treated with respect, and that we are capable of building an alternative future when the need arises.
Independence is the ability to embrace the unknown, to enjoy living on the edge and the excitement of setting out on a new path — rather than fearing the abandonment of the familiar and the comfortable.
The more dependent we become on our daily routines and our employers, the more our ability to spread our wings diminishes.
Surrendering to a predefined slot may give us a sense of stability, a company car, and a comfortable financial life — but the price is sometimes the surrender of our free spirit and the right to experience life in its fullness, for better and for worse.
Happy Independence Day 🌷 😊
--
Photo: Dawid Zawiła