The Toxic Trait of Self-Help
By serving the individual, it fails the collective
Raised in the Midwest and coming from a farming lineage, I have a built-in do-it-yourself mentality.
When I was a kid, I needed little to no outside motivation to keep me going when times were hard. I had cat posters on my bedroom walls reminding me to “hang in there!”
No one—not my parents, not my teachers—ever needed to discipline me. I was fully capable of attending to that task myself. When I made a big mistake at my first corporate job, my boss, having noted this about me, told me I could “kick myself.” He knew that I would do just that—no shakedown needed.
For many years I was a long-distance runner. Definitely the kind of activity in which you have yourself and only yourself to keep you going. Whether I’ve faced relationship breakups, mental or physical health challenges, or just general loss or disappointment, I have only ever depended on myself and my positive (berating) self-talk to get back up and out there again.
I prided myself on my resilience. My bounce-back ability. My seeming endless endurance, which I proudly inherited from my mother.
