“Self-care is not selfish.” Since I first stepped onto the Wellesley College campus in the Fall of 2015, I have encountered this phrase everywhere I go. I’ve seen it in Orientation programming and on dining hall posters–I’ve even heard it from the mouths of my friends. Eventually, I began to say it myself. As a Resident Assistant, I talked endlessly about how to maintain a certain level of self-care, handing out advice and posting literal “how-to” sheets, as if there were some kind of magical formula. “Hey, you! Yeah, great, take care of yourself! Go take a nap”, one of my own posters basically read. How nice and encouraging.

And this obsession with superficial self-care is not just a Wellesley phenomenon. It’s recognized by numerous sources on the national level, including US News, Psychology Today, and Forbes. I agree that the practices the “self-care” mantra promotes are important. Everyone needs to take care of themselves in order to survive.

But here’s the catch: Self-care as an ideal mode of living is premised on an intrinsic mistrust of the community around you. Go take care of yourself, because no one else is going to do it! That will obviously make you feel loved.

This messaging becomes even more problematic when its source is a system of power. For example, when it comes from the college administration itself, the liability for students’ wellbeing is then shifted onto the students. Does the administration really believe that it’s enough to want the best for their students while not following through with serious action? Or is the college just too ill-equipped to be effective or even strategic in the first place? The school is basically telling students that they have to deal with their issues on their own, except it’s packaged in such a friendly manner that it hides the institution’s unwillingness to take responsibility for its students. This self-protective approach is exposed by the shallowness of #wellness events on campus. Have you ever had all your problems taken care of by going to a night of bingo? I sure haven’t.

It’s an unacceptable societal problem that the only care you’re receiving is from yourself. When life gets hard, you won’t necessarily be able to keep it up. Maybe you’ve done it–pulled yourself up by your bootstraps. If so, you probably don’t see it as such a happy, low-stress feat. It’s heavily taxing, because if we were meant to solve all our problems on our own, we wouldn’t be living in communities from the start.

I think a lot of this extreme focus on the self comes from living in our supremely individualistic society. Specifically in college, I feel like I’m constantly confronting the American ideal of lone ranger independence. A white American friend of mine from the Midwest told me how there’s no way her grandma is ever going to live with her parents–it’s a retirement village or nothing. What! Coming from a family with members who immigrated in later waves, I could never say these words to my parents, and they could never ever say them to theirs. In less individualistic non-American cultures, telling people to self-care is inherently selfish–on the part of the person doing the well wishing. It’s basically saying this community you have will cheer you on, but you’re the one who has to land the routine. However, if you love them enough to give them (unsolicited) advice, why aren’t you doing the routine with them?

Also, the meaning of self-care originally referred to therapy for people who either weren’t being sufficiently cared for or were so dependent that they needed to feel some autonomy. It’s about surviving. Not thriving. As Slate points out in an article on the history of the term, self-care was historically given as medical advice to dependent patients, a coping mechanism for those in trauma-related professions, and later as a resistance effort for marginalized groups. Nowadays it’s being tossed around casually, as for example in on-campus postering–“Self-care and Face Masks”, “How to Self-Care During Exams”, “Take Care of Yourself and Pet a Puppy”. These are fun things! But for me, it’s never been these events that have gotten me through. It’s the people around me who have actively made sacrifices to care for me, who have sat with me until 3 AM, who have never given up on me even when I gave up on myself.

I believe that in order to truly thrive we need to support and pour life into one another. That’s the world I want to live in–one where a college orientation doesn’t have to emphasize self-care, because it already consists of a community of people who will radically love each other without being instructed to do so. One where no one is using curt hashtags and administration waivers to shirk the responsibility of actually caring for one another, because the needs of the administration and the students no longer diverge. Instead, we’re all members of humanity, and we no longer need to rely on our singular abilities. With everyone working together, we can all help each other take better care.