In modern U.S. history, there were periods when the cultural ethos of our nation had us serving others and devoting ourselves to the greater good. The Greatest Generation fought to end tyranny during World War II. Civil right protestors risked their lives for social justice in the 1960s. The hippies and anti-Vietnam War protestors brought about a cultural revolution based on peace, love, and understanding.
But as the Summer of Love wound down, after we’d boomed enough babies, our collective consciousness took a decisive turn inward. Author and cultural critic Tom Wolfe defined the 1970s as “the Me Decade” in a 1976 article in New York Magazine, kicking off what became a Me Half-Century. Our ideals began to shift away from the idea that we depended on each other for our health and well-being and toward bootstrap individualism, upholding personal achievement as the ultimate success.
The Me Decade dovetailed into the Greed Decade of the 1980s, with the unofficial mascot of suspender-loving financier Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street, who famously coined the mantra “greed is good.” Grabbing and grasping for personal wealth in the ’80s flowered into the unbridled entitlement of the 1990s, aka the Self-Esteem Decade, when everyone got a trophy and our own feelings and needs came first.
During those years, books about the toxicity of self-focus and brattiness started to pop up. By the turn of the century, with the widespread use of the internet and social media, we took to posting incessantly about our lunch, creating YouTube channels, and uploading a million selfies. Me Culture evolved again to take on a holistic, mindfulness bent by “living your best life,” and “following your passion.” “Self-Care” has been elevated as the panacea for whatever ails us. The influencers and soul patrol espoused that by forever working on ourselves, we’d find happiness.
Every generation has its version of “I’m doing me.” We have been immersed in Me Culture, in its various permutations, for 50 years, doubling and tripling down on all-about-me-ism. And that’d be swell, if the scientific data showed that it had any health benefit.
The truth is, it’s not all about you. It never has been. And by fixating on ourselves, we can actually harm ourselves. Self-serving culture has trained us to look out for ourselves first and screw everyone else. But this attitude has left us feeling alone and empty, and it has triggered an anxiety epidemic. Research has found that the more people focus solely on themselves, the worse off they may be in almost every metric that can be measured: physical and mental health, emotional well-being, and professional success.
We’re not bashing self-care and mindfulness per se…In terms of happiness and success, exclusively self-focused self-care is just not as effective as other-focused other-care. Looking outward, making human connections, serving and caring for others — the opposite of looking within-ward — has proven stress-relieving benefits. Science supports that a key to resilience is relationships.
Despite our obsession with self-care and devotion to wellness, we aren’t doing so well. According to various reports:
In what is likely the longest-running scientific study every conducted (80 years and counting), the Harvard Study of Adult Development (also known as the Harvard Grant Study) began tracking the health of 268 Harvard sophomores, beginning in 1938 and checking in with them regularly over time. The researchers followed the trajectory of their lives, with the aim of identifying key factors responsible for good health and happiness. Only a handful of the people initially enrolled in the study are still alive, but the results over the years paint a clear picture of the importance of human connection in health, vitality, and longevity.
Meaningful relationship were not only key to good health and longevity but also for the Grant Study subjects’ well-being. After decades of rigorous investigation, in what we think could be one of the best lines ever in academia, George Vaillant, MD, the study director for 40 years, said, “The 75 years and 20 million dollars expended on the Harvard Grant Study points…to a straightforward five-word conclusion: ‘Happiness is love. Full stop.'”
This excerpt was adapted from Wonder Drug by Stephen Trzeciak and Anthony Mazzarelli. Copyright 2022 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
Stephen Trzeciak, MD, MPH, is chief of medicine at Cooper University Health Care, and professor and chair of Medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. Anthony Mazzarelli, MD, JD, MBE, is co-president/CEO of Cooper University Health Care, and the associate dean of clinical affairs at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
