No one is coming to save you

Secure your own mask before helping others

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

In July 2020, while a global pandemic raged, my friends and I cobbled together our collective privilege and sought solace at a vacation home in Ojai, California.

It was there in the desert, in a tone both affirming and haunting, that my dear friend Selene uttered a simple truth about our predicament: “No one is coming to save you.”

The world has never not been hard.

You can gripe if you want to. You can pump out your rage in Tweets. You can blame other people, seek the root “ism”, or unspool in a cauldron of your own anxiety. But none of these helps you.

Eckhart Tolle says that “You are the answer to all your searches: you are the goal.” The answer isn’t out there. It’s not coming up next in your feed. Everything you seek is inside you and it could take effort to bring it out.

But it falls to you, because you’re the only person responsible for your needs, your wants, and your happiness.

No one is coming to save you. You are beyond capable, you are enough. Good luck.