INTERDEPENDENT

Interdependence is ten times more difficult than independence. It demands so much more mental and emotional independence to think win/win when another person is into win/lose, to seek to understand first when everything inside you cries out for understanding, and to search for a better third alternative when compromise is so much easier. In other words, to work successfully with others in creative cooperative ways requires an enormous amount of independence, internal security, and self-mastery. Otherwise, what we call interdependency is really counter-dependency where people do the opposite to assert their independence, or codependency where they literally need the other person's weakness to fulfill their need and to justify their own weakness.