This works, until we burn out and crash. I certainly have - I spent most of 2024 severely burnt out, and part of it was not protecting my time and setting healthy boundaries.
There's a balance between serving others and taking time to rest. Existing in community takes sacrifice and sometimes that means setting your own needs aside. But being in community also means that others can step up to help you when you need to rest, sharpen your saw, etc. People pleasing and setting poor boundaries in the context of (American) individualism means being a jerk.
I read somewhere (can't find it now, I'm literally on an operating table) that people in more community-focused cultures were more comfortable taking alone time. Because they know that if they take time, things aren't going to fall apart without them. The community will be there to welcome them back in, and nobody will be upset for them taking the time that they need.
Just some off the cuff thoughts.
- It tells people they are inherently better than other people: "Other people aren't as good as you."
- It excuses their bad behavior: "Your bad behavior is not your fault, you just reached your limit in dealing with bad people. It would happen to anyone".
- It offers a false veneer of being reasonable, even when it is just a framework of excuses. As you say: "It points to a need to balance compassion for self and others."
I don't think such ideas are necessarily engineered this way, but that is why they proliferate.
Once you feel better, would you mind sharing anything more that could help locate what you read? It sounds like a really interesting read.
Again, these values are timeless.
I was watching some vintage F1 clips and it showed some guys from the 70's celebrating a win and it occurred to me that I rarely see people (men especially) celebrating in such a carefree and passionate way. They weren't afraid to show emotion or show that they really cared about the result. They were chalant.
I hope we can bring back vulnerability, emotions, and being okay with looking "cringe" sometimes.
That said, I also feel a general kind of nihilism and apathy. But to be honest: I don't really know if it's worse than in the past? Or I'm just getting old and tired of all the stupid bullshit?
I think in general people fear to be genuine about things they care about because the internet put a spotlight with the potential for ridicule on a scale never seen before on them. That is why young people seem so into self depreciation, can't be put down if you are there from the get go "it might be cringe but so am i" and "I like it ironically".
In my view, modern society makes it too easy to seclude yourself from people and ideas that are opposed to yours, and there’s a lot of people focussing on individual achievements and winner-takes-all mindsets instead of trying to see how they can be valuable to their community and build relationships putting aside disagreements.
[1] https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/our-blessed-homeland-thei...
On the other hand, as the career art of RFK, Jr. shows, horseshoe theory is real.
This is false. The observation that being too nice and trying to please people is counterproductive, and putting it into self-help or pop-psych books, goes back to at least the 1970's.
For instance, see the book Creative Aggression, The Art Of Assertive Living George Robert Bach, Herb Goldberg [1974]
That stream of thought was probably the foundation of the whole "me" decade of the 1980s and all that followed.
Oh yeah, and then of course there is material like the writings of Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness [1964]
If we go centuries back we have Machiavelli's The Prince and whatnot.
BugsJustFindMe•5mo ago