By Ron Surgeon
Have you ever received a text from a weird number saying, “We’ve read your profile and have a remote position for you paying $500 per day for 30min- 2hrs of your time. Flexible schedule. Same day payout.”
You read it thinking, “This is too good to be true.” You look a little closer, noticing the strange links and an ask for personal information. Immediately, you feel a sense of unease. Something smells scammy.
We live in a culture that glorifies the fast way up, optimizing every aspect of our lives by sheer willpower, and being self-sufficient. That also sounds alluring and “too good to be true.” Self-sufficiency-in the sense of needing no one- is a scam. It is a myth that hurts us. Sufficiency, through human connection, is non-negotiable. It is a biological, social, and psychological need.
We come into the world wired for connection. We are wired for interdependence. Connection is a fundamental need and a contingency for developing into a sensible human being. We were never meant to carry the burdens and joys of life alone. We grow in relationships, we hurt in relationships, and we heal in relationships.
Relationships are the context for nurturing courage and hope.
Our mental health, our healing, and confidence will be richer when we let people walk alongside us as we walk alongside others.
Our society is writhe with loneliness, which when prolonged, makes us more susceptible to depression, anxiety, stress, heart disease, and a wrecked nervous system. Connection is the cure. We can practice mitigating loneliness in small steps:
1. Notice when you isolate: when you’re overwhelmed, stressed, or after conflict, etc.
2. Identify a safe relationship or one that is proving to become a trusted relationship.
3. Reach out and ask for help as a sign of strength: Could we meet for coffee this week to catch up?
4. Connect regularly because consistency is more important than intensity.
5. Remember that you are worthy of connection by nature of being human.
Self-sufficiency is appealing.
However, like all scams, it causes harm and falls short of follow through.