First Help Yourself

I was listening to a Science Friday podcast where the host was talking about people that were watching too much coverage of the oil spill in the Gulf. They were reporting being very depressed, and some mental health expert guest basically told them to stop watching the coverage. She said that you have to take care of yourself or you will break down and you'll be incapable of helping others.

Not many of us in the country are going to be working on the oil spill, so it's kind of hollow advice to say that we have to somehow preserve our stregth or mental stamina by staying away from the oil spill coverage. But it is fair to say that if you let yourself get preoccupied or depressed by events that you will not be able to handle your personal life as well.

So the mandate is to take care of yourself first. The podcast guest expert made the analogy to being on a plane during an emergency and putting your own oxygen mask on first before helping your children put theirs on. The story is often told to caution people from being to selfless and altruistic and as a result rendering themselves worthless to help anyone.

It's something you have to tell yourself if you are a parent. It starts as simple things like making sure you go to the bathroom in the morning before responding to the crying baby. You can't make much soothing noises when you are dancing around with an urgent need to pee. You can't change a diaper very easily when you are squirming.

The problem is that there are less alarming situations where it's very easy to forget this premise. You forgo exercise because you are busy caring for a child, and pretty soon you're a candidate for a cardiac because you're so overweight and out of shape. This doesn't do the child any good if you're not around.

Sometimes it happens with work. You neglect your personal life, or your personal duties when you get absorbed in work, and then you are in such a rush to get your life together that work suffers.

I suppose this is inevitable for people that tend to look out for those around them. And a good reason why selfish bastards sleep so easy at night without a care in the world. We all know people who always go out of their way to take care of themselves and spend little or no time caring about anyone else. So there must be a way to have the best of both worlds, but I haven't figured that out yet.