IN these present days of great endeavor and achievement, no quality is more highly esteemed than is self-reliance. New seas are being charted in the mental realm, as well as in the physical. In all these ventures, men must break away from some time-honored belief and established limitation; they must disregard the prophecies of failure, the discouraging doubts and cautions which are poured into their ears; they must turn their backs on all this, and resolutely go forward in the path which, as they see it, leads to the fulfillment of their vision. How vital it is that they have a large fund of proper self-reliance! Indeed, this is necessary, if there is to be successful and creditable living.
Through the study of Christian Science, as given to this age by Mary Baker Eddy, its Discoverer and Founder, many are finding that true self-reliance unfolds naturally and logically as a result of understanding. At the outset it is imperative that we gain some clear conception of the self upon which we are to place reliance. The first chapter of Genesis tells us that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." God being Spirit, or Mind, man is His spiritual image or likeness. We cannot, therefore, escape from the fact that in our true selfhood we possess, by reflection, His qualities and attributes, and that these qualities constitute our very selfhood. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 294), "Man's genuine selfhood is recognizable only in what is good and true." Self-reliance thus resolves itself into the positive position of full reliance on our true spiritual selfhood, rather than on a misguided sense of human selfhood—reliance on that selfhood which embraces those qualities which are inherently man's by reason of his spiritual likeness to God. Relying on this selfhood, we are truly self-reliant.
How many false props this attitude removes! It at once eliminates fear, with all the conjectures and cautions it includes; it does away with egotism, any false sense of one's worth, ability, or place; it removes doubt, anxiety, and indecision, because one has established himself in his true relationship with the all-powerful God, thus appropriating a measure of His power. It shows the utter folly of attributing any real strength to thoughts which embody arrogance, aggression, domination, pride, or overconfidence. In short, it completely discredits all the unpleasant and ungracious qualities of human thinking to which has been prefixed the word "self," such as self-consciousness, self-depreciation, self-conceit, self-assertiveness, self-will, self-justification.
