When Individualism Fails Us
“My world’s on fire, how ‘bout yours?” – Smash Mouth
By all accounts, we should be happy. Statistics show that the majority of the Western world is educated, employed, housed, and fed. Our basic needs are met. We should be happy, fulfilled, and living our best lives.
I can already hear your protests, though. It’s a repeating refrain these days: global warming and end-stage capitalism pushing ever-increasing levels of homelessness, illness, and poverty. We live in fear of another pandemic and what will rise next from the cesspool of our current political polarization and alienation. The discontent of the employed takes up ever-increasing real estate on social media. We don’t feel heard, included, or valued. The sarcastic memes proliferate as if they are escaping steam from a pressure valve. Necessary lest we all explode. We are not happy. We are not fulfilled. And we are definitely not living our best lives.
This disconnect between the statistics and the discontent points to what I believe is the deeper issue. We’ve been taught that we alone are responsible for our happiness and fulfillment. In fact, we’ve built whole systems around this idea that fulfillment is an individual pursuit. But what if these very systems that were designed to help us thrive are actually built on a misunderstanding of what humans actually need?
This misunderstanding shows up most clearly in how we think about belonging. In my last piece, I explored belonging as something that begins from within. But belonging is also shaped by the systems we live in. It is both an inner practice and a collective pursuit. We can’t find our home in the world if we haven’t learned to feel at home in ourselves. And we can’t feel at home in ourselves inside systems built to deny connection.