Sorry, But Self-Negligence Is Not Actually Self-Care

However, the type of self-care culture I’m going to be criticizing in this article is a very superficial and hedonistic type of lifestyle. Unfortunately, it’s been packaged and mass-marketed as an attractive way to live for people who feel lost in their lives. 

Maybe they’ve let their physical health slip or have stopped putting effort into grooming themselves. It could be underperformance at work or school or a lack of an exciting social life. Many of these situations suck, and it can be a good idea to give yourself a break every now and then to relax and blow off some steam before resuming your day-to-day. However, the push for self-care culture has shifted into a permanent state of being. We’re no longer looking to have a pause in our busy week. Rather, we’re desperate to escape personal responsibility and are constantly chasing what feels good rather than what’s good for us long-term. 

Just Because It Feels Good Doesn’t Mean It’s Good for You

You know what doesn’t feel great when you first start? Exercise, eating healthy, or acquiring a new skill. However, all of these things are certainly going to benefit you in regard to long-term personal fulfillment, wellness, and mental health. Isn’t this the type of self-care we should be most invested in? Well, it’s not the self-care I’m constantly being inundated with when I log onto social media. Instead, it’s superficial rituals like running a bubble bath with a glass of wine and candles on the side, eating that 2000-calorie gluttonous meal from Shake Shack, or spending copious amounts of money on items that bring you instant gratification. It’s not that there’s never a time and a place for these things – it’s just that a continuous loop of self-gratification isn’t self-care in any meaningful sense of the phrase. 

Things that feel good aren’t always good for you. Posed as the antidote to hustle culture, self-care was supposed to be about finding value and meaning in your life outside your economic productivity. We are, as Tyler Durden rightly proclaimed, “not our f***ing khakis.” However, the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction now, and too many young women are running around directionless, goalless, with nothing but a shallow and hedonistic philosophy.

This type of “self-care” is performative. It comes packaged in catchy slogans like “I am enough,” demanding no evidence that you are, indeed, enough. Proponents of self-care culture will find the previous sentence to be appallingly offensive. “I don’t need to prove myself to anybody!” they might think. How about proving it to yourself? What is investing in bath bombs and inappropriately scented candles from Goop doing for you that some structure and accomplishment wouldn’t achieve? Establishing routine and structure in your life by investing in your nutrition, exercising, getting enough sunlight, and working on your personal goals are all forms of self-care that are seldom discussed in this pseudo-wellness culture. 

Sometimes, to properly care for yourself, you need to endure temporary discomfort. 

Meanwhile, the promotion of the immediate serotonin boost has come at the expense of long-term investments in our health and well-being. Sure, it may feel difficult at the beginning of a workout regimen to stay on track and hold yourself accountable. It’s even explicitly uncomfortable and painful, but this is a much better form of self-care than deluding yourself into thinking that letting yourself eat five pizzas is a form of self-love. That’s self-hatred and self-sabotage masking itself as self-love. To truly love oneself, you have to be honest. Comfort and self-care are not exactly the same thing. Sometimes, to properly care for yourself and create the best version of yourself, you need to endure temporary discomfort. 

The Co-Opting of Self-Care

Self-care is no longer a state of being, it’s an entire industry – one that’s been mass-marketed to potential customers under the guise of taking care of yourself instead of acknowledging that paying $60 on some pretty rocks that supposedly cleanse your energy is probably more of an irresponsible financial decision than anything, but hey, treat yourself, right? Self-care has become superficial. It’s either a long routine of meaningless tasks listed on popular Instagram infographics or it’s just a clever new way for businesses to convince you to buy their products that, quite frankly, often don’t do anything. “Wellness” and “self-care” have become new buzzwords for companies to target in their marketing campaigns. The self-care industry is estimated to have a value of $13 billion by 2026.

In this context, self-care can be thought of as an extension of consumerism. Getting hammered at the local bar tonight? That’s self-care. Want to order pizza and binge-watch way too many Netflix episodes instead of getting things done? Self-care, baby. People are starting to become self-aware that using “self-care” as an excuse for self-destructive behavior has become so frequent that it’s a bit of a meme now. 

Even more concerning, however, is how self-centered it’s making us. When you mold an entire philosophy out of the idea that your immediate satisfaction and personal desires are what’s most valuable, then you’re left with the normalization of toxic behavior like cutting off friends for very arbitrary infractions because you think you’re the center of the universe. If I had a penny for every tweet I’ve seen that encouraged people to drop friends who haven’t reached out to them lately, I’d be cruising around in my diamond-encrusted Tesla. That is, if I also lacked taste. Point is, this is a very immature and narcissistic worldview. People have their own lives, interpersonal conflicts, responsibilities, and hobbies that take up their time, and only so many people they can keep up with. This is a natural part of life and immediately taking someone’s silence as an act of aggression signals emotional immaturity. 

Lowering Your Standards Is Self-Negligence Parading As Self-Care

Another significant problem with self-care culture is the call to lower our standards for ourselves. Don’t worry about what you look like, how much weight you gain, whether you have stretch marks or acne, if you’ve never been in a relationship at 35, or if your wardrobe screams “dress to unimpress.” After all, people need to handle all of you to deserve the best parts of you, right? There’s something deeply sinister in our promotion of mediocrity to young women. While men seem to be desperate for the slightest hint of encouragement to better themselves (think of the rise of male self-help gurus like Jordan Peterson or Jocko Willink), the opposite phenomenon is taking place in women. Have we become allergic to self-improvement? 

When you love yourself and feel good in your skin, you exude that through maintaining personal hygiene and grooming. 

A cursory glance at social media will suggest that we have. Take social media engagement on posts that criticize men vs criticizing women. If someone posts a video about what a man can do to improve his value as a partner and increase his ability to secure a date, men aren’t frothing at the mouth at the idea of constructive criticism. Women often even chime in in the comments to offer their own two cents. Flip the perspectives, however, and Houston, we have a problem (and it’s self-awareness). It’s common for women to feel defensive and attacked when they’re the focus of criticism or being rated on their appearance, even if it’s something the women voluntarily participated in. This allergy to self-improvement, I think, stems from the lack of accountability that self-care culture has created.

The Shift from Personal Responsibility to Societal Blame

Take body positivity, for example. The idea that we should celebrate “health at every size” implies that every size can be healthy. However, obesity is one of the leading causes of heart disease and diabetes, which are life-threatening conditions that shouldn’t be celebrated. Obesity is unhealthy, unaesthetic, and exhibits a lack of self-control. None of those things are goals or worthy of praise. The body acceptance movement may say that we should accept them, and I certainly agree they’re entitled to respect and kindness just as any other person, but we’re definitely leaning into self-deceptive territory here, where we have to pretend a 200 lb woman is both healthy and attractive.

We all, deep down, want to look our best, whether it’s for ourselves, our significant others, or our peers. Letting yourself go is a much bigger problem than mere appearances. It can be a sign that you’re struggling with a mental illness like depression, or it can signal that you don’t have a lot of confidence in yourself. The reason you should put effort and work into yourself is that’s how you build confidence and earn respect for yourself. Dressing and looking good can help you feel good, and this can cause a domino effect of positive things throughout your social and professional life. Neglecting your appearance is not self-care – it’s the exact opposite. When you love yourself and feel good in your skin, you exude that through maintaining personal hygiene and grooming. 

Despite the increasing focus on self-care, people aren’t becoming happier. Gen Z is more likely to report mental health struggles like depression and anxiety. While some of this can be attributed to the destigmatization of mental health discussions making younger people feel more comfortable discussing these struggles, there may be something deeper going on. Self-care places a lot of emphasis on the “self,” which studies have shown is counterproductive to achieving happiness and fulfillment. This is why people start families, go to church, or help their community. Acts of kindness toward others are linked to increased feelings of well-being. It isn’t surprising, then, that those who suffer from depression are more likely to be focused on the self. Those with depression disproportionately use “I” statements and first-person pronouns like “me” and “myself.” In place of finding deeper sources of fulfillment and purpose, young people are being fed shallow and narcissistic coping mechanisms that only further perpetuate the problem. 

Acts of kindness toward others are linked to increased feelings of well-being.

The history of self-care dates back to the Greek philosophers, but the term was coined and popularized in the ‘60s by civil rights activists, who recognized the need to invest in personal, emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing to avoid activist burnout and symptoms of PTSD that result from genuine systemic oppression. Essentially, to help their communities and protest for civil rights, activists needed to be taking care of themselves. Today, however, self-care is either entirely divorced from activism and helping others or is only connected to performative activism, like posting a black square on Instagram. 

Closing Thoughts

Instead of insisting that society should change, why don’t we look inward, and engage in self-improvement? When your problems are your fault, you can be the solution. You don’t have to rely on society, the government, or some vague reference to an institution to permit you to be something. We don’t need to keep normalizing things, it's time to start working on ourselves. You can improve yourself by putting in the work at the gym, in your diet, in your mental well-being, and in your social life. You have the power to break out of destructive habits and become the best version of yourself. 

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