When self-care is just selfish

At the end of last year there were a total of 22.68-million posts marked with the ever-popular self-care hashtag, with an average of 29,700 posts per day. At the onset of the New Year that number jumped to approximately 34,000 per day, thanks to New Year's resolutions.

I try to stay away from resolutions. I'm far too anxious to promise myself that the next 12 months will be filled with a fitter, smarter, more goal-oriented me. What's more, I can almost guarantee that my new year will be filled by maybe one manicure, zero facials and sub-zero massages. 

Does that mean I don't consider myself worthy of the spoils of life and don't absolutely unconditionally love myself? Well, according to the trendy tag, yes — because this new brand of self-care is an extremely simplified version of self-improvement.

In reality, for me it's the opposite.

Self-improvement is the belief that we can develop personally. We can sit back, introspect and find the factors in ourselves that need working on. But on platforms like Instagram, self-care seems to start with the unsettling belief that we're perfect, valuable and absolutely fine as we are, and that all it takes is pampering and grooming to bring out our best selves.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with taking care of yourself, but to reduce it to an indulgent exercise that pertains only to an external you is a bit selfish, no? After all, how does the effort of forging new beauty routines subsidise your ability to be a person contributing positively to society?

Maybe the trend should be turned on its head. Perhaps instead of millions of people relaxing in the seats of overconfidence and covering themselves with a blanket of salon-delivered indulgence, we could shift into a more uncomfortable place, content to feel older, less beautiful and less groomed than the illusions our beauticians and hairdressers support.

Is it so bad to feel bad and, because of it, do something better for the world and not just ourselves? If we settle for the happiness promoted in self-help books and websites, aren't we just upholding the illusion? Self-improvement should be hard work. Becoming more functional, empathetic members of society is not a breeze. It's not a yoga class or a nail polish.

Psychologist Tasha Eurich, author of the book Insight, says there are few people who are really self-aware. We're too obsessed with knowing ourselves in relation to how we appear to others.

Carl Cederstrom, an associate professor of organisation studies at Stockholm University, co-authored two books, The Wellness Syndrome and Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement, about the basics: taking care of your body and mind. He asks whether, when these practices are commodified and become shiny and expensive, they can still be called self-care, or has this morphed into something else?

"The ballooning #selfcare movement is partly a reflection of the fragmented society in which we live, in which solidarity is under threat," he says. "There's a strong individualised rhetoric behind self-care, which is popular for a lot of people today."

If self-care and self-improvement are assumed to mean the same thing, then what we're essentially promoting is that a spray tan and a mimosa with friends can be as beneficial as having good mental health. This leaves no space to differentiate between recreation and real introspection.

Audre Lorde, the US poet and political activist, famously said: "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it's self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."

I'm not advocating against getting that deep-tissue massage. I'm just asking whether we should consider standing outside the circle of ourselves to look into who we are, and what we are to society, while we have our shoulders rubbed.