It's a Complete Sentence

Headlines scream, “Self-Care is Imperative;” you can’t open a blog (including this one, and it’s only Day 2) without reading some version of the hackneyed phrase, “Ya gotta put on your own oxygen mask before you can help those around you!”

            I’m certainly not going to disagree.  I spent way too many years repeating some version of, “brush your teeth get enough sleep eat your vegetables get off the computer and go outside” to recant now. Nevertheless, I’ve come to believe that self-care isn’t so much a list of CDC imperatives as it is a philosophy.

            The whole self-care “movement” can be summed up in one word:

            Boundaries.

            For our sanities’ sake, we need to learn to say “no.” How we say it is up to us. We may lean toward the conciliatory: “Sorry, I can’t make cookies for the Bake Sale, but I will be Wrapping Paper Chair” (n.b., that is not a good trade). We might be brisk and businesslike: “Moving to swing-shift isn’t going to work for me.” Maybe we outright lie: “Oh, there’s a high-school reunion this Saturday? Gosh, I’ve got minor surgery scheduled for that night or I’d TOTALLY go!”

            What we say is less important than learning to stop guilting ourselves into doing things that we don’t want to do. Setting boundaries with people whom we love or respect or work for can be anxiety-provoking. It’s much easier to fill someone else’s cup than it is to take responsibility for our own cups being empty – and besides, won’t they be mad at us if we don’t do for them what we’ve always done?

            Sure, some of them will. The selfish, the thoughtless, and the abusive will hate the fact that they’ve lost a source of free labor (whether physical or emotional). Get over it. Money, emotion, and self-respect aside, these people are draining us of our most non-refundable resource: Time.

            We only get a finite amount of Time. Do we really want to spend it on mindless pursuits and toxic people? As Benjamin Franklin said, “that is the stuff Life is made of.” Reframe, renegotiate, or refuse the things that are wasting your life. Start small, if you have to, but start.

            And, while you’re at it, brush your teeth.