You do you

We’ve all heard this before, right? Mostly from Fiat 500 driving, self empowered young women on the majority of social media platforms. It tends to be hollered as a form of superficial quip, gesticulating support for a close friend’s actions or decisions. But let’s side step that particular landmine for now, and focus on the words themselves.

You do you. It could be taken a number of ways. 

To concentrate on ones own progress, instead of the progress of others?

To look after your self interests because if you don’t, who will?

To promote self worth in an otherwise under appreciated individual?

I’m sure there’s plenty of other meanings, but we’re going to stick to one in particular.

Concentrate on solving your own issues, not the issues of others

Have you ever done something just to please someone else? I don’t mean offering to take the bins out, or buying a gift for your better half. I mean dropping all of your wants, all of your needs, all of your desires, just to make someone else happy? I’m guessing the majority of you have (even if it was just the once). Let’s visit that feeling for a second. 

How did it go for you? 

Did you get pleasure out of it? 

Did it make your life better?

Fuck, did it even make that person happy? 

At best, it may have brought that person a short-lived feeling of gratitude or relief that they no longer had to face this particular problem. Do you know why this is short lived, and can even sometimes feel under appreciated? 

It’s because you dropping everything you believe in to please someone else, not only doesn’t make any sense to you (now that you’re sat there thinking about it), but it doesn’t make any sense to the person you’re doing it for either. 

Allow me to explain.

Creatures who crave problem solving

Here I’m going to lay the groundwork for the processes that one can go through when attempting to take responsibility for the actions/decisions of others - especially in terms of problem solving. 

Example: You get some flatpack coffee table/sideboard bullshit from Ikea. What’s the first thing you do, when all the pieces are laid out in front of you? You throw the instructions to the side, and have a crack at putting it together. Sure, following the instructions of how to build this particular Swedish jigsaw would save you time, and make your life a whole lot easier. Still, it’s just not the same, is it?

Let’s relate this to something a little closer to home than Scandinavian furniture. You come across a problem in your personal life. Perhaps it feels like your boss is singling you out for criticism. Perhaps your best friend has bailed on some plans that you were really looking forward to. Perhaps, despite studying relatively hard, you still failed a recent exam. What is the first thing you do when confronted with these or similar issues? 

Whether it is conscious or not, your mind will attempt to solve the riddle, and come to a conclusion on what the next course of action should be. 

Side note : Not all people are like this. Some may cast aside any responsibility for their problems as soon as they encounter them. People you and I would refer to as, narcissists. We’ve all met them. Those people who believe themselves to be above the inconveniences of the rest of the world. People who proceed to funnel all of their problems downstream, for someone with less self-privilege to fix. Although this post isn’t about narcissists, I will say this:

Identify and remove these people from your life. No explanations, no apologies. 

These people are happiness vacuums, ready to suffocate everyone they come into contact with, 

and should be avoided without exception.   

But, let’s assume for now that we’re not narcissistic in nature, and possess the natural urge to fix our own problems. 

What happens when our mind comes back empty? If you can’t ‘do you’, what is the solution? 

You may ask a close friend or relative for their assistance. You may seek out answers from your preferred search engine. You may even throw caution to the wind, and write in to one of the many ‘help me, my life is fucked’ columns in your chosen tabloid newspaper/magazine. There are correlations with these reactions, but what is it?

Despite the fact that you’re asking for a helping hand, you are NOT asking for your problems to be fixed for you. You still want to ‘do you’, but now require a small amount of assistance. 

This is the part where the respondent (henceforth known as the facilitator) has a decision to make. They either attempt to guide you (the troubled) onto the path they may have chosen, therefore narrowing your options in terms of appropriate actions to rectify your issue. Or, they fix the problem for you. 

When choosing the latter, a never ending cycle of relationship DIY begins. The facilitator feels the urge to service the troubled in a bid to alter their happiness. I call this, ‘The Hero Effect’. This effect provides the foundation for the majority of unhealthy relationships, and is a key driver toward the amount of progress an individual will make. In other words;

How can ‘you do you’ when you are expending all of your energy on the problems of others, and how can they do them when you are relieving them of that responsibility. 

The Hero Effect

A feeling of satisfaction that an individual achieves by solving the problems/issues of someone close to them.

The Hero Effect is detrimental for a number of reasons:

1. The facilitator is failing to allow the troubled to satisfy their urge to problem solve. This will cause the troubled to feel unconsciously dissatisfied.

2. Whilst enabling the needs of the troubled, the facilitator’s issues will go unsolved. This will result in a negative headspace for the facilitator, forcing him/her to look for an escape from that negativity.

3. Upon resolving the issue offered up by the troubled, the facilitator will feel short term satisfaction. This will trigger a recycling of past behaviours in a bid to relive that fleeting feeling. Not only does this continue the facilitator’s cycle of distraction, it also provides the escape from their self-constructed cell of negativity.

4. Over a period of time, the facilitator’s plights will reach capacity. Not only will the action required to begin solving their issues feel monumental, but they will most likely be on the brink of clinical depression. This forces the facilitator further into the distraction cycle, in the hope that contributing to someone else’s happiness will fulfil their own.

As you can see, ‘You do you’ is an extremely difficult motto to live by when you expend all of your time, effort and energy on the problems of another. But not only that, the word cycle infers exactly the reason why these behaviours lead to clinical depression - it’s continuous.

Scenario

Boy gets mad because he has a problem.

Girl feels responsible for the happiness of the boy.

Girl then goes out of her way to fix the problem for the boy.

Girl fixes the problem and feels relieved that the boy is now ‘happy’. 

Boy comes across next problem.

Repeat.

That’s the elephant in the room when it comes to this particular behavioural flaw. The fact that you’re putting someone else’s happiness before your own is merely the tip of the iceberg. The submerged-portion is that once you solve/fix/remove that first problem, you’re already staring into the eyes of the next.

In his book ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life’, author Mark Manson states:

"Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another."

So not only are you spiralling into a pit of misery - feeling like your life and aspirations are going down the tube - but the person who’s happiness you put before your own is producing problems on mass. This results in you working 24 hour shifts in their factory of meaningless servitude, hoping you’ll be able to put food (the endorphins transmitted through satisfaction) on the table (the neurons in which the endorphins are transmitted). 

Help me, my life is fucked

Now that you’ve got your head around the crux of the matter, you may begin to ask - I want to do me, but how do I break the cycle?

Scenario

Girl has a problem.

Boy enquires how he can help.

Girl explains her problem.

Boys listens, empathises, and offers solutions that the girl could put into action.

Girl chooses one of the options to fix her problem (or goes in a different direction entirely).

Girl eventually overcomes, solves or moves past her problem.

In this instance, the boy has aided the girl without the need to fix the problem himself. Leaving both parties satisfied with the outcome. 

This method may seem awkward at first, especially if you attempt to implement it into a relationship where the status quo has already been established. But you will not continue to grow by incessantly fixing the problems of others. In fact, your emotions will bounce from fleeting satisfaction to self loathing like clockwork. 

Not only will anxiety become your base emotion, it will become your identity. People who get shit done on a daily basis, were not born with that trait already instilled in their personality. It was conceived there through consistent behaviours contributing to that end. 

A person who eats well and exercises regularly was not born with this already programmed into their psyche. It took long term periods of committed action and endurance to implement those base behaviours. This then allows that person to see this as part of themselves, as part of their make up, as part of their identity. 

They did them, now you need to do you, without apology. Create your identity, establish your behaviours, be selfish. Because, as you’ll see in a future post, selfishness and selflessness are more alike than you think.