Independence is noticing where your opinions came from and deciding which ones to keep.

A great deal of what you think arrived from somewhere: a parent, a town, a coach, a group chat you were in at fourteen. That is not a criticism, because there is no other way to start out. The independent part is not having no inherited views. It is knowing which ones you inherited and then deciding, one at a time, whether you still hold them.

Take an opinion you feel strongly about and trace where you first heard it. Then ask whether you would still arrive at it from scratch. Some you keep more consciously, and some turn out to have been somebody else’s all along.