My turning point in redefining freedom began a few months ago. Like many of life’s greatest lessons, my epiphany came in the simplest of moments. Well, simple for me, yet a historically vital moment in the life of my 5 year old daughter.

For over two years she rode her bicycle, most times chasing after her older brother, with her helmet strapped on, her flowered-white-handlebar-basket, flowing pink streamers and plastic training wheels attached. Initially she focused solely on pedaling and keeping up. Yet, after a short while I noticed her paying more attention to children cycling around her than to the bicycle path itself. Her knew goal was to one day shed her training wheels and “ride like a big girl,” a perfectly normal, natural and beautiful progression in the mind of a child. When that moment hit, and on every ride since, her courage, liberty and independence are registered in a full-faced, beaming smile.

The transformation from four wheels to two wheels had a truly profound, life-changing effect on her that transcends cycling. Overcoming her fear of falling and personally accepting responsibility for her own balance changed who she was. Now more confident, headstrong and outgoing in dozens of different settings, her initial instability replaced with a new-found sense of freedom; a life-enhancing-freedom most certainly.

Do you know many 20, 30 or 40 year-olds still riding with a set of training wheels attached? Or have they outgrown them, shedding their dependence on outside sources for personal power, balance and mobility? I bet they have. I can’t remember the last time I saw some my age swimming with inflatable water-wings around secured around their biceps. Seems that humans were created to grow through challenge, to survive the struggle and to ultimately thrive. As the brilliant Frederick Douglass believed, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

I’m beginning to wonder, like many others I suspect, if far too many of us are looking to exterior sources for equilibrium and support. Born with the greatest invention known to the Universe, a Human Brain, how many of us still looked to be coddled, bailed-out, supported, legislated and protected by intervention and outside aid? A Human Mind, unencumbered by training wheels and water-wings can achieve truly amazing things once it finally and naturally outgrows its early stages of development.

As I look around at all the government bailouts, “revitalization plans,” and the myriad of “safety nets” our elected officials are attaching to our daily lives, I see how truly codependent we are becoming as a people. We seem to forget that personal equilibrium is the responsibility of the individuals within the electorate and NOT of our elected officials themselves, no matter how loudly and forebodingly they scream.

Here is the thing with safety nets. For those unaware, they soon become shackles. Training wheels left too long decay into tyranny.

Self reliance and independence are one and the same.