The Myth of Self-made

Photo by Mike Bowman on Unsplash

While it may just be a four-letter word—and a single syllable at that—self carries a lot of freight. Especially when linked with other words: Self-aware, self-worth, selfless. On the negative side we speak of someone as self-centered, self-destructive, selfish.

One iteration I hear sometimes, though, makes no sense: self-made.

The phrase’s technical meaning has to do with someone starting a company or making a mint without the benefit of a hefty inheritance. But the very idea ignores how important others have been—a parent or teacher or inspiring mentor. We never become ourselves by ourselves. Living an abundant life is no do-it-yourself project. Always, we owe a debt to the contributions of others, to what someone called the givenness of things, to the gifts that scatter themselves across any life.

Even the language I use to write this column was imparted to me, taught to me. A world of meaning was given me. “Every word you speak,” as Sam Kriss puts it, “has a history that began long before you were born, breeding itself in a million other mouths.”

And our debt runs even deeper than that. Who of us gave ourselves the gift of life? We did not claw our way to life in this world. We did not create ourselves. That hugely impressive act belongs to forces and choices and dreams that stretch back way before us. Ultimately, life is a gift because a Creator chose, out of sheer delight, to share it with creatures like us.

And that’s how life feels, doesn’t it? Like we are more than the outcome of random comings-and-goings, more precious than if only the result of a biological fluke. We got where we are, my Christian faith tells me, because we were preloved, ushered into being, set amid a constellation of other human souls who gave us birth and nurtured us.

If those necessary interconnections humble us, they also help lift us out of self-involvement. We become more likely to recognize how much our selves thrive only in grateful interdependence.