Wellness Starts with “We”

Everything you need is inside you.

Or is it?

Is your sister inside you? Your lifelong friend? Your mentor?

Do you need them?

The platitude “Everything you need is inside you,” is everywhere these days. But it isn’t serving you. And it just ain’t true.

Besides air, water, food, clothing, and shelter, we need each other more than we need anything else.

Prisoners in solitary confinement go crazy in short order. Infants in orphanages who are fed—but not held—die.

In fact, we need each other just like we need air, water, food, clothing, and shelter.

In his brilliant TED talk What Makes a Good Life? Lessons from the Longest Study on Happiness, Robert Waldinger, while describing the findings of Harvard Medical School’s Study of Adult Development, makes crystal clear what the most important factor in our well-being is:

“The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”

“But over and over, over these 75 years, our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned in to relationships, with family, with friends, with community.”

Everything you need isn’t inside you.

In fact, most of what you need you get from—or together with—other people.

Is it any wonder the word “wellness” starts with the word “we”?

The notion that everything you need is within you, in spite of the good intentions behind it, feeds the toxic-vapid values of stubborn independence and proud self-reliance that cause a lot of unnecessary suffering.

When you examine humans for our defining characteristic, what stands out is our ability to bond with each other. It’s our ability to collaborate with our close ones in meeting our needs that ensures our survival not claws, fur, or night vision. We keep each other safe—and well. And without each other—we’re screwed.

Everything you need isn’t inside you.

I invite you to consider two new ways of living: eager coreliance and fierce interdependence.

When we go through life eagerly relying on others and eagerly giving others the opportunity to rely on us, life transforms from a lonely grind into a rich adventure. When we rely on each other, vicissitudes are buffered and moments of joy and peace are amplified. Everything is better together.

There’s nothing weak about depending on each other. On the contrary, depending on each other both requires us to be strong and makes us stronger. It makes us more persistent and resilient. It emboldens us. Most importantly, depending on each other makes us happier and healthier.

About Jason Gootman
Jason Gootman is a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach and National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach as well as a certified nutritionist and certified exercise physiologist. Jason helps people reverse and prevent type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments with evidence-based approaches to nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, holistic wellness, and, most importantly, lasting behavior improvement and positive habit formation. As part of this work, Jason often helps people lose weight and keep it off, in part by helping them overcome the common challenges of yo-yo dieting and emotional eating. Jason helps people go from knowing what to do and having good intentions to consistently taking great care of themselves in ways that help them add years to their lives and life to their years.