We are responsible for our own rescue.
This might feel dangerously disingenuous, and indeed it does oversimplify some issues. If there are no means for you to rescue yourself, how can that be expected of you? The problem is when this statement is turned into an attack, into a moral issue, rather than a reflection. That leads to bootstrapping: “if I am responsible for my own rescue, then you have to be too.” There is merit-mentality and grit involved, both of which are their own bastardizations of self-help.
Rather than shaming others with this principle, we must parse out what rescuing ourselves actually means and determine whether it is touching on Truth. This raises a fundamental question: what do we need rescue from?
All of our problems, anxieties, struggles come from one of two sources: within us or outside of us. From here, the paths to relief begin to show themselves. When distress comes from an external source, we have two options: change the external source and free ourselves, or acknowledge that we do not have the power to change it. Both offer freedom; not from the problem itself, but from our suffering. This, then, is the only sure definition of relief: freedom from suffering caused by struggles, not from the struggles themselves.
Externalized definitions of relief result in increased suffering. When rescue doesn’t come in the way that we would prefer, usually in freedom from the problem itself, we double down on the suffering we experience. The hope that we will be freed from circumstance results in additional suffering when the deliverance never arrives.
Rather than place salvation in the hands of external forces, we can find it within ourselves. If we can exercise agency and make change, it frees us both internally (practicing wisdom and courage, at least, to take action) and externally. If we cannot change circumstance, we still reserve the power of acceptance. With acceptance comes serenity and relief. Reflection, acknowledgement, and acceptance become the path to freedom from suffering. “I have no control over this; what do I have control over?”
Distress can also take form from an internal source. In these circumstances, much more is left to our power. These struggles take the form of fear about the future, rumination on the past, or a physiological and psychological reaction to the present.
It is difficult work to free yourself from these things, but it is work that you can do at any time. Shining a light on shame and past mistakes, learning from them, discarding worries about the future by making good choices in the present, or learning how to respond when emotional turmoil and panic strike in the moment are all possible to achieve. It is difficult, but it is possible.
None of these actions can change what has occurred or what may occur, but they can free you from the suffering caused by those things. By placing your rescue in its proper definition and context, true hope can arise. This is said best by Epictetus, who said: “We cry to God Almighty, how can we escape this agony? Fool, don't you have hands?”
Edited by Jeremy Harr and Abigail McKay Cherry
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