According to “Self-Sufficiency Is Overrated” written by Sarah Wildman (2021) in The New York Times, the author had been helped by her friends and strangers and this kind of generosity bettered her to understand her real feeling and new points of view of self-sufficiency during her struggling times. First, the author exemplifies the situation when she borrowed her friend’s house for a summer week. On top of that, her friend also made additional generous offers, asking if she wanted some supplies such as eggs or milk. Ms. Wildman stated that “I brushed off her offers. Really, I said, we don’t need anything. It’s kind of you just to lend us the space.” However, her friend insisted, and this kind of entreaties enlightened her to realize that she “want[ed] someone else to take care of”. Being isolated from covid has worsened everyone’s mental health as the research conducted by NPR has shown that a half of families have been facing serious mental problems in the past few months. Some added stresses also aggravated the situation to become not only weary but also frayed, and her daughter aged 12 would be an example for this. Her daughter received chemotherapy for cancer and was under numerous treatments before that. On top of that, her mother couldn't think of words and was sent to the hospital. Spending time for four days to monitor her mother, her family was offered some help from friends to take shifts looking out for the patient. Although she denied it at first, then she thought it was the time to not take on self-sufficiency anymore. She then had an opportunity to receive tremendous kindnesses from friends, salespersons, and even strangers, all of which made her reflect on a way of thinking of the concept of self-sufficiency that we, humans, need to live with other people and sometimes we need someone to support us at some points. However, it is difficult for us to not hold strange feelings when bumping into long-lost friends. Just simple words like “I love you” made the author feel more buoyed.
One of the main reasons I chose to summarize this article from The New York Times is that this topic is easy to digest for everyone without requiring any sophisticated knowledge. On top of that, it is generally related to everyone as we all have some degree of self-sufficiency in ourselves, although it is largely subjective to indicate how much it is. Therefore, while browsing for one article, I was thinking the summary I wrote might fit with them. Besides, at the time, I was in the mood of reading general topics with a sense of philosophy. Also, I tried to avoid choosing a profound one.
ReplyDeleteNot only was I interested in the emotional information of the original piece of writing, but also my new perspective towards self-sufficiency. Generally speaking, I enjoy reading other people’s life stories as it benefits and broadens my horizon. This kind of vicarious experience often demonstrates different and difficult situations that I never imagined or faced before.
The author mentioned her own situation in connection with covid-19 and self-isolation which I feel that I have been affected by these consequences too. Thus, I believe that I am with them and I tend to understand and appreciate their situation well. It is common that most people might feel uncomfortable through this period of time probably because of many restrictions and limitations from internal and external factors such as the government. Apart from that, many Thais, for example, had to change their livelihood and lifestyle.
By the way, I have a thought that self-sufficiency is clearly different in each country. For example, in western nations seem to mostly adopt this as a priority because I assume their people do not want to interrupt or ask others for a favor or they are just individualistic. It absolutely depends on aspects of culture, I would say. On the other hand, most or many Asians seem to do things in a group so this kind of way of life might have influenced how people think and behave.
I was glad that Good chose this article to summarize. It raises issues that I've thought of from time to time over the long Covid isolations. I've been lucky to have been able to easily switch to working online, but not all of my friends could do that. But despite my own relatively easy time, the isolation did get to me sometimes, and I'm very bad at asking for help. Instead of saying "I need some face-to-face company," my habit is to invite people to a meal so that we can physically be together. Perhaps I should be a bit more honest and just say: "Please come and watch some NetFlix with me. I could use the company."
DeleteComparing Good's ideas about different culturally determined responses, I thought Num's comment below interesting - she sounds more like me.
I always feel awkward when receiving help from friends even though I needed those help. Asking for help is even harder for me. Due to the pandemic, many facing different situations that cause them mental health problems. Although being aware of self sufficiency in the situations like what news said is good way that I will do to my friends, accepting help is needed to relax your intense situations in life. This news reminds me when I received help from friends when I was down. The feeling that there are someone care for me was a heartwarming moment that drove positive energies back in life. Or even when I was offering a help to someone, and they felt grateful for that it made me feel very happy.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Good. Your summary has offered me a new perspective toward self-sufficiency too. Before reading it, I used to think of 'self-sufficiency' as a concept in economics and social development, because the first time I came across it, it was in an documentary about Thai King Rama Nine who invented 'self-sufficient economy'. However, after finished your summary, I can understand that self-sufficiency is similar to being independent. I think I am self-sufficient or independent, as I don't usually ask someone to help me, but that sometimes makes people around me angry at me. Some of them think that refusing their offerings is rude. So I have tried to balance who I am with what others expect from me. If they are Thai and offer helps, I will accept it and show that I am very happy with that. I think it is Thai custom to not to deny others' offerings.
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