Play Article. Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

As the African proverb tells us, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. This common saying is true after all because my little experience as a team leader at one point or the other in my life has taught me a few things about people and life. 

I would, of course, say that yeah, there is little to what individuals can achieve on their own and an attempt to want to get everything done by oneself alone has, to me, proven daunting.  As the saying goes, ‘No man is an island entire of itself…’, that is the downside of self-reliance or better still independence. 

Some overly independent folks often think they can do everything by themselves, they feel they do not need people. Self-sufficient, they say, but nature often finds its way of telling them, “Well, lad, you need help.” 

No leading organization in the business world today has its founder claim he built the company himself without needing help from no one. Most CEOs and founders often say, “…then I met this person…”, “…then A and B joined my team…”, “…then this C bought the idea.”. This sends a subtle message to us all that, to make something great in life, you need help, you need the blessings of your mastermind group, and the language of a group is often, “us”, “we”, “ours” etc. 

A group exists when two or more people interact for more than a few moments, affect one another in some way, and think of themselves as “us.” (David G. Myers, Social Psychology) 

A good association is driven by a common goal. The whole idea of a group, team, or whatever name you give it, is to help one another execute common goals and objectives which individuals cannot actualize standing alone. Any organization or group that is void of this has no focus, hence, no direction, and will never kick-off and even if they move, there is a high chance that they will crash in the long run.  

Achieving our goals and objectives makes us happy and pushes us to do more. 

I want you to think about that time in your life when engaging in activities with your friends made you happier. All of us have that moment, time and time again. When I’m pretty down, I engage in activities that connect me with others. That often lightens me up. 

Happiness is feeling connected, free, capable and fulfilled, this is what keeps a team moving forward. What makes a big work appear as a piece of cake is that feeling of fulfillment, satisfaction and contentment you experience doing that task. That is how a good team should make you feel. 

Team, group, etc. as used in this article do not only refer to the collaboration of many but also the relationship between two individuals. A good example is a relationship between a man and his wife. A man needs his wife as much as she needs him.  

The Holy Bible says that God saw that man needed help and He gave him a woman as a help mate to help him through his mysteries. Your relationship is supposed to make you happy. 

You see, God knew that man could only achieve so little without external aid. He knew he created a social animal called man, as observed by Aristotle, the Greek philosopher who said “Man by nature is a social animal”. It is an innate nature of man to function in society rather than alone. You need your friends as much as they need you. It is a universal constant or should I say a natural norm. 

Many of us often think that money is what we need to solve all of our problems, but the reality is often amazing. We need more than money, we need people.  

Related Article: What really makes you happy

Let’s assume you have all the money in the world but there is no one ready to help you carry out your plans, trust me your money would be useless. Without people there would be no such thing as Ford, Tesla, etc, there would be no initiative of line production, theory of division of labor, etc., that made mass production easier. Let’s face it. You need others to bring your dreams to the limelight. 

Remember the illustration I made about the corporate organization? That is exactly how life works. The word organization is relative to a Luxembourgish word that implies the structure of the body or its parts.  

What does the body teach us about teamwork and needing each other? The head needs the legs to move, likewise, the entire body needs energy that is absorbed from the food that enters the stomach through the mouth, fed by the hands. That is how much we need each other for survival. 

Self-sufficiency is an illusion because we all need help. However, I do not want you to be like the foolish man who on hearing that adding salt makes food more delicious goes ahead and add excess salt to his meal. Saying that self-sufficiency is an illusion, I do not imply that you drift to the extreme of dependence. That too is a road you do not want to walk.  

Dependency is a need for others to meet one’s psychological, social, physical, or financial needs. (goodtherapy.org)  

Another definition says dependence is the process by which your mind and body come to depend on a substance so you keep feeling a certain way. This tends to result in withdrawal symptoms when you stop using the substance. (healthline.com) In this case, the substance is an actual person (when others stop meeting your needs). 

You need others, but you do not need them for everything. There are certain things you must do by yourself and for yourself. You must learn that when others fail to provide you with certain support, you must move forward without nursing resentment towards them. You must learn that not everyone will buy into your beautiful idea, and that is fine. 

However, I will hold it here so that I do not scatter the foundation I have laid about needing others. I will talk about the dangers of dependency in a later article. But this, read over again and ensure you understand it well enough. 

I will close with these words: We need each other. “We’re connected to each other. We belong to each other. We’re made for each other. Life is a journey through time, and happiness is what happens when we make that journey together.” Social Psychologist, Professor Dan Gilbert. 

You may also want to check this out: Assigning Task to People, an Effective Method in First Aid that is Relevant to Life