Self Sufficiency or Self Reliance?

One of my favorite blogs is Down To Earth,by Rhonda Jean. She lives in Australia and has a great view on life and how to live it. Last week she led a discussion about Self Sufficiency vs Self Reliance,and it led me to rethink my thought process.
My Dear Friend Michelle had started leading me down the path to doing more for ourselves,and emailed me blogs that she was following about homesteading and organization. I delved into it and thought, "We could do this." Alot of the blogs mentioned "Self sufficency",so I latched onto that phrase. We would strive for self suffiency! It might take a while,but we would do it bit by bit.I didn't really think about what it actually meant,but it sounded like what we were trying to do.
Then I read Rhonda's post.
Hmmm.....was it really self sufficency or self reliance we were striving for?? Self sufficiency meant living by your own means only. Raising all your own food,etc with no help from the outside. Now that sounds wonderful in theory,but in practical terms,probably not going to happen,at least for us. We don't have enough room for raising all animals we would require,cows,pigs,etc.We have space for chickens and turkeys. We could have a big garden,but not big enough to sustain us year round. So I have to supplement from somewhere.
The more I thought about it,the more I realized that what we are trying to acheive is actually more Self Reliance. We might have to go outside of our home to do what we have to do,but we could try to keep it to a minimum as much as possible.
As Oprah calls it,it was an "A HA" moment. I know we will never be "Self Sufficent." We do not have means or space. However, we can strive to be more Self Reliant. It might not come as fast as we would hope,because of Rick's ailments,but we can do what we can do,and that is what is important.
Here's to Self Reliance!!!!