Quote:
Originally Posted by grtwhtgrvty
Well when all is said and done, the only person who can /really/ help you is yourself. People are amazing but they are very fickle and very unreliable and if you stand or fall based on others, you'll always inevitably fall because they won't be able to hold you up forever, whether because they lose interest or they just can't do it anymore for whatever reason. It's okay to let people help you, but I only think you should go looking for help when it is absolutely necessary to your survival or well being.
Obviously therapy is amazing though. I'm talking about like personal relationships and stuff. Even therapy though -- mere sprinkles on the ice cream... same thing with medication. These are both potentially helpful tools, but they mean nothing if you don't put in the leg work to improve yourself.
|
I actually agree with you in general. *shock, gasp, faint* It's great to have people to rely on, but nobody can be expected to carry you on their shoulders, and nor should they. It's just not fair to force your responsibilities on someone else when they have their own issues.
It's also dumb. Whatever problems you have, and plenty of people do have problems (emotionally and psychologically) so severe that their ability to take care of themselves is severely hampered, but there's just no getting around the fact that you have to take care of yourself, lest you develop a mentality of dependence that leaves you at the whim of others.
In this day and age, there is a sad idea that this is at least more acceptable, due to liberal ideas about welfare and social responsibility -- though I'm certainly not saying I'm against those on principle, but like grtwhtgrvty mentioned in another thread, nothing ever has purely good consequences, and whatever their virtues, these relatively modern ideas have the unfortunate consequence of making self-sufficiency less of a "revered trait".
I don't agree with many of the old school, pre-sixties ideas about these issues either, as they tend to ignore and treat with contempt individual circumstances that can leave people literally at the mercy of their own unchangeable problems -- whether it be less obvious, and therefore easily dismissed, mental illness, or the kind of economic disparity suffered by minorities at the hands of society and the government -- although I also recognize that much of this mentality arose after the Depression traumatized an entire generation into believing in relying entirely on their own initiative rather than seeking help from others, since they were likely as bad off as you. But I do think that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, so that America -- or at least the more liberal sections of our society -- has adopted an unrealistic, touchy feely mentality that can cause dependency on outside help, at the expense of personal growth.
Being raised in a libertarian, Irish Catholic family, centered around a grandfather who made himself a success story after coming from severe poverty on the streets of New York City, there was never much sympathy when it came to failure, and I was never coddled as I grew up to be a... less than independent slacker, who just doesn't understand how so many of my relatives can be such goal-oriented, A-type personalities. Their relentless "encouragement" (i.e. well-meaning, yet self-righteous lecturing) hasn't done much for my self-esteem, but in the end, my failures are still my own, and even if mental issues outside of my control have legitimately hampered me, I still can't rely on the "kindness of strangers". My family might help and support me (which I am grateful for, as even though their attempts can be ham-fisted and discouraging, it all comes from a place of love and concern), but that will never cause me to get my **** together by itself until I take my life back into my own hands under my own initiative.
Is it fair that it might be harder for me to overcome my issues than it is for others? No. But that's life, and I just have to make the best of the hand I'm dealt, without hoping to be given better cards out of pity. An atheist such as myself would never pray to any god to intervene on my behalf, and it's similarly unrealistic to hope for the same from someone outside myself.
*** Like I said, I'm not a libertarian who hates the idea of welfare or government intervention in some instances, but I'm just saying that self-reliance has to come hand-in-hand even in
most of those cases (If you're so mentally ill that you need to be institutionalized, then yeah, you might deserve to be given a pass.)