You Don’t Need To Cut Ties To Be Your “Better Self”
Toxic relationship culture has pulled us further away from our better selves.
Presented as inspirational and motivating, you don’t think twice about the type of messaging something is conveying until you really give it some thought. Though it’s hard to think of something so positive and empowering could actually be so insidious due to it’s overtly positive nature.
“Having the right circle of people around you is honestly the biggest life upgrade.”
“A person should be two things: who and what they want to be.”
“Win in your mind and you will win in your reality.”
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
A lot of this type of messaging is used again and again and on the surface you think this is some inspirational stuff. You can change the neutral gendered wording to a specific gender or a group and build a brand revolving around that.
It’s the kind of popcorn content that can amp people up.
But the more I look at this individualistic approach, the more manipulative and generally ineffective it becomes. Even though some of the content doesn’t imply this is all done solo, it’s giving off those vibes.
Those quotes I changed to gender neutral terms, but a lot of that messaging is presented as a means of empowering women. Boss Babe sort of talk. And while I’m all for empowering and supporting women, I don’t think this type of messaging is the best way to do that.
Because this messaging is tackling a particular pillar of the self-help movement and it’s falling into the same holes that traditional self-help gurus fall into. The particular pillar they’re addressing is one around toxic relationships and both have the implication that one is to combat this solo.
And it’s this kind of thinking that makes matters worse rather than better.
It Creates A Vibe Of Good And Bad People
The modern form of alienation has revolved around this idea of individualism and that there are good and bad people in the world. It’s built up this sense of independence through the overvaluation of self-determination and self-sufficiency.
Your circle of friends you have today is due to your efforts.
Your achievements were done from your hard work.
If you feel well, then everything will turn out alright for you.
It’s carefully crafted this idea that you are a strong and stable image for yourself, however it’s constantly under attack by all kinds of different forces. They give them a name.
Toxic.
And these individuals can come in all sorts of ways.
A bad boss or a hater of your work or who you are are a few examples. But things start to get really meta when they go as far as to imply your friends, family, or even yourself is a toxic individual and that you need to make some serious overhauls.
Despite being this strong and capable individual as they imply, that “empire” can come crashing down because of a single individual that you now must deal with and replace them with someone much better for you.
It’s alienating because the difference between good and bad people is pretty difficult to tell. Obviously there’s a difference between a man being anti-semitic and another man turning their own home into a sober living center, but the lines start to get blurrier when we look at those not under so much public scrutiny.
Is someone who advises you not to join an MLM — where you would be wealthy and finally live out your dreams — a toxic person?
Is someone telling you to take your time or to temper your expectations about something big and exciting because they care about you a toxic person?
Is someone warning you about this person because they “know this type of person” a toxic person?
Right out the door this sort of rhetoric can easily go from an individualistic focus to establishing an “us versus them” scenario. Where the path to your independence is blocked by several obstacles — typically relationships — that are “holding you back”. And so in order to reclaim your individualism, you need to be your own self-starter and seek out your squad to help elevate you.
After all, finding where you truly belong will allow you to stomp out any problem like they’re nothing and everything will just flow naturally.
The reality is far from that. Yes there are definitely good and bad people out there in the world, but using that labelling is a bad way to go through life. We all have inherent flaws to ourselves and these can create all kinds of different problems for us and those around us. It’s inevitable and we don’t know what or how it’ll affect those around us or ourselves.
To create this standard where those around us have to somehow have no flaws and only bring positivity to us and around us all the time is an impossible standard. There’s going to be struggles. And relationships are going to have rough patches. To suggest otherwise sends us down a path that is far more regressive than just accepting that there will be problems.
Here is how.
It Culminates In Privileged Irresponsibility
The heavy focus on individual advancement and focus serves a specific purpose — to blindside us from the fact that everything that we ever achieve in life is influenced or assisted by someone else. When we learn to walk, our parents are there to catch us and encourage us to keep moving. When we score well on tests it’s due to teachers persuading us to prepare ourselves for those tests.
When we grow a successful business it’s due to the patrons around us, family members supporting us, and maybe some investors chipping in behind the scenes.
We simply don’t do things alone.
And yet this messaging implies a lot that our happiness (and unhappiness) is purely from individual and private decisions. That we own our happiness entirely and that our decisions are what brought us here.
And while that’s true, it’s only to some extent.
While we do make the calls for what is best for our happiness all the time, the degree of happiness and unhappiness that’s created is formulated together by those around us. Therefore our attitude and our efforts matter a great deal.
This is problematic because if a movement encourages individual self-advancement over caring for other people, you’re actively denying one aspect of what makes us human: seeking connections.
We know that people with an incredible amount of wealth are disconnected with what’s going on in reality.
And that’s effectively what’s happening on a smaller scale.
With more wealth, it instills this idea that you earned this money — despite the fact you had a lot of other people helping you along that path.
This aspect doesn’t just apply to wealth though. From relationships, health, and any other improvement you make in your life, this kind of thinking encourages “privileged irresponsibility”. It’s the idea that one can simply ignore struggles and hardships similar to other privileged individuals who don’t have to face them.
It creates this disconnection even when we haven’t achieved those things as well since this mindset is designed to focus on yourself and grow yourself and tells you that’s the best method for getting to the top. Developing a money mindset, starting a business, seeking out connections, meditating. Those things can be done solo. You don’t actually need help in those things.
It’s problematic because naturally, problems are going to happen and when you’re conditioned to focus on yourself, the solution becomes very narrow. There is a quiet acknowledgement of the problem, but it’s followed up by raw individualism. It instills ideas of “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” and it reinforces that only you can solve this issue and overcome it.
Or that this issue really is no big deal.
All of this reinforces a lone wolf scenario. Even if this movement encourages you to seek connections, this mindset also encourages to discard those connections if they prevent you from living your fullest. That people are only as useful as they are to your goals and your overall happiness.
It’s All So Backwards
Alienation is meant to be confusing. Self-help at its core has always been leveraged as this sort of confusing tool since there are so many different approaches to problems. One person can say one thing and immediately contradict themselves with something else.
This movement is another example of this as you are encouraged to leave your comfort zone and become your best version of yourself. But that same movement says you’re responsible for your own happiness entirely and that you shouldn’t care about what happens around you. In other words, use those around you and toss them away when they can’t help you or hold you back because they’re suddenly “toxic”.
You need to be loving and caring, but also heartless and ruthless to those around you based on the circumstances you are facing.
Even though you are advncing in some regards with this thinking, you’re creating more problems for yourself along the way. It’s a regressive thinking and it can also result in you dwelling on problems for much longer than they should. All because you believe you’ll overcome this problem eventually.
The problem with individualism is that leaning into it too far and you begin to isolate yourself from those around you. It’s being around other people where we learn how to fit into the world and how to interact with it. When you adopt this sort of mindset where to be your better self you need to see every interaction as transactional, you’re not able to build those deeper connections.
And it gets worse when you innevitably have to face difficult challenges. We see with rich people struggle with the same sort of problems that us not as wealthy people face.
Drug addiction.
Alcoholism.
Workaholism.
These become more severe to people who believe that they’re all “self-made”. And while we might not develop as severe of an issue with those things as better off people, a mindset that encourages all of this is fine doesn’t help.
It creates a dependency on yourself and the reality is some things you can’t just do all on your own. What truly helps is connections.
And it’s the connections that we form that ultimately make us into better people. After all, true relationships and a commitment to improving them can result in all kinds of developments you wouldn’t expect if you were just focused on yourself.
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