Reflection on "Self-made Person" Myth

By Sachin Syal - 3Doshas - Chief Marketing Officer

As I saw this picture it made me reflect deeply about the cultural myth of a "self-made person". The

myth is that success is achieved entirely by individual effort, without help from others. It says

that if you’re successful, it’s because of your own intelligence, discipline, and hard work - and

only those things. It assumes you started with nothing and achieved greatness without anyone

else’s help. Like you pulled yourself up “by your bootstraps.” This myth is very significant to our

society, as we all have seen posts in the media such as Instagram quotes about “hustle culture” or

“nobody helped me.” This angle ignores privilege, systemic advantages, and community support.

Let’s rewind a bit. If we think about the main goal in life, it’s typically finding a purpose, doing something you love, and creating and running a family of your own, for most people.

Since childhood, we’re pushed to learn new things from family/friends, become smarter, and hone in

on our skills, talents, and hobbies. This is why we go to school, starting from preschool all the

way to college. We learn more as we get employed or start our own business. Our parents teach

us values and culture, our friends give us company, and our teachers help us become better

people. If you think about the end goal of all of this and why we as humans do this, it’s because

we all want to be successful in life. Everyone wants to live a fulfilling and accomplished life, and

there are many ways to do that. I think the desire and hunger for success is a beautiful and

wonderful thing. You could work your dream job, be an entrepreneur, be an athlete, be a doctor,

be a musician, be an actor, be a humanitarian, and the list goes on! The reason I find the cultural

myth of the self-made person important to me personally is because I have seen a new trend of

unrealistic hustle culture, especially with young folks like Gen Z. I feel like this myth is so

prevalent because it is tied to the idea of the “American Dream.” This unfortunately glorifies

entrepreneurs, billionaires, or celebrities as “self-made.” What this does is ignore privilege,

inherited wealth, family connections, systemic inequalities, or sheer luck. This matters to society

because what it does is it motivates, but it misleads. To explain further, it gives people hope that

they, too, can “make it,” but it oversimplifies reality. Another problem it causes is it blames

individuals for failure. If someone struggles, the myth implies it’s their fault for not working hard

enough. In addition, by stating success is all about effort, the myth downplays real barriers like

racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, lack of access to education, medical conditions, disabilities, and

more. Social media has made it worse. There is actually a term for this. It’s called hustle porn

culture. To clarify, this has nothing to do with the adult entertainment industry. One of my

mentors told me about this term, and it’s the unhealthy and fetishized culture of overworking,

where long hours are seen as a sign of honor and are often shown off on social media with

hashtags like #RiseAndGrind. It’s about working harder to get ahead by any means possible,

even if it means putting one's own health and mental and physical well-being at risk. This is

indeed rewarding for me to consider as I enter adulthood and the workforce.

The message this picture is trying to convey is that the concept “self-made” is not 100% accurate,

as we are all dependent on others to some extent. This could be parents, co-founders, investors, doctors,

lawyers, friends, family members, the public, and more. Of course, these people are obviously

legends, icons, and tycoons in their field, but it most likely took them a long time before they hit

peak success. There is a lot of “dark work” that people don’t see. They only see the success, but

not the work behind it. They’ve been working at it their whole lives. Success doesn’t come

overnight, and I think more people need to properly understand and internalize that, or else

they’ll end up in the rat race they didn’t want to be in, in the first place. People also need to

understand that social media usually only shows the wins and positives of someone’s life, not the

failures and setbacks. People typically don’t post their bad/low times, it’s usually good/high

times. I selected this cultural myth over all of the other ones I could have chosen because it’s

very near and dear to me. As someone diagnosed with a challenging medical diagnosis that

required me to take time off of school, I feel that wellness, living in balance, and being healthy

(physically, mentally, spiritually, and financially) is crucial and beneficial for all human beings.

It’s a bit upsetting and makes me sad when I see posts that glorify never sleeping and always

hustling. Or things like “Nobody helped me get here,” “If I can do it, so can you,” etc. The truth

is, and in my humble opinion, if you talk to most successful people who are also doing well in

other aspects of their lives, they would probably say overworking or being a workaholic is

detrimental. A lot of these people also talk about how money doesn’t buy happiness, which is really interesting and could be a whole paper of its own. Another problem I’ve seen is people

setting “unrealistic” goals like, “I need to be a millionaire by 25,” and I don’t, I’ve failed in life.

Of course, money is definitely important. It buys us freedom. But setting goals like that can

cause you to fall into depression. Sleep is also extremely important and is directly tied to overall

functioning and well-being. It’s also not good to compare yourself to others.

One of my favorite sayings is “comparison is the thief of joy,” and I think it’s absolutely spot on. Comparing your life, accomplishments, or circumstances to those of others all the time makes you unhappy and keeps you from feeling content and happy. You should always compare yourself to yourself, take baby steps, learn from your mistakes, and make today better than yesterday. In fact, I really loved the way the instructions for this assignment ended in “Aim to have this be your best work yet!” Once you get that down and can apply that to all aspects of your life, you will be successful and

remember that everyone is different and everyone’s definition of success is different.

The odds of you being born were about 1 in 400 trillion, so love yourself and be happy with who you are.

There is literally only one you in this world. Be yourself, because everything else is taken. ❤️