At the most basic level, yes, obviously, you need to care for yourself. But that’s not what “self-care” has come to mean. Similar to “good vibes only,” “self-care” is a selfish narrowing of the world, where your needs, wants, and desires are all the matter. If someone else happens to overlap with your vibes, cool, but if not, fuck that: my good vibes only.

And since when did it become hard to address your needs? Isn’t that the default position? Don’t you just unthinkingly do what your self, in this very moment, wants? And isn’t THAT the problem? That you are so focused on yourself, you’ve missed that perhaps the best way to care for yourself is to care for others? Instead of self-care, how about WWJD? How about civic duty, responsibility, honor? How about some real fucking values?

So I’ll start taking “self-care” seriously when someone says she is caring for herself by helping grandmas cross the street or by doing something she doesn’t want to do, like reading a book instead of binging another mindless show.