put on your own oxygen mask first
life advice from 30,000 ft
1. looking inwards
Maybe one day I’ll regret being dogmatic about this, but for several years now, this airplane safety guideline has served me well, though thankfully never at high altitudes.
Most of my life, I couldn’t get behind this logic. I thought it was irresponsible for airlines to request that parents neglect their progeny in favor of taking care of themselves first. I’d think, “but, it only takes two seconds to put the mask on their child, and what if the child can’t put it on for themselves?”
I saw the Titanic, and when it was going down, it was women and children who got first priority in the safety boats first. It only seemed natural that a similar order apply when it came to oxygen masks.
But now, after many years of spreading myself too thin – people pleasing, forgetting myself after the concerns of others, I get it. That’s the whole thing. We’re better equipped to deal with others once we’ve dealt with ourselves.
Notably, it also only takes a parent a couple of seconds to put on their own oxygen mask, and once a parent has it on, they are far better equipped to help their child.
When we dive into this metaphor, putting on our oxygen masks first is not just about survival, but empowerment.
What I’m really getting at is knowledge of oneself – of one’s needs, motivations, and passions. Though, gathering that knowledge and developing habits to support what we discover is a lifelong process.
As Carl Jung once said,
“Looking outwards has got to be turned into looking into oneself. Discovering yourself provides you with all you are, were meant to be, and all you are living from and for.”
As shapeshifters, we must continually reacquaint ourselves with each new version of us that comes into being. Meaning, we are tasked with the constant reevaluation of how to best take care of ourselves. These answers are not stagnant.
When we overly concern ourselves with making sure that everyone else can breathe comfortably, we reduce our own capacity to breathe. When starved of air, not only is our survival put at risk, but we are most definitely going to have trouble expanding.
Think of trees in a forest competing for resources – nutrients in soil, water, even sunlight. The trees that care for themselves the best continue to better optimize use of resources creating prime environments for the other species that interact with them.
Of course, taking care of ourselves should not come at the cost of others or neglecting them. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is about balance.
We are a reflection of our surroundings. If the Titanic is going down and we discover we are musicians, we are going to play our hearts out like that sinking string quartet. This oxygen mask metaphor isn’t a reminder about self-preservation, but rather a reminder that we do our best caring for others when we are doing the best we can to care for ourselves.
2. our environment is built on where we look
Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, keeps cropping up in my mind as I write about this. He wasn’t a hero by any traditional stretch of the imagination. His writing and radical way of living wove together the beat and hippy movements of the fifties and sixties, respectively.
I recently finished for the second time the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, a novel by Tom Wolfe, a journalist who followed Kesey and his band of acidhead Merry Pranksters on a day-glo painted bus called Further as they drove around the United States. They spread a hippy gospel with an intention of transcending the psychedelic bliss of lysergic acid to create a more open collective state of consciousness.
I’m not arguing that Kesey literally helped others by marching to his own drum (though, personally, I think there is a case to be made in that regard); but, I do think he shifted something. He changed people’s minds; he brought something new by radically surrendering to himself – to his inner voice. He hoped others would do the same.
“Before the bus trip, Kesey gives the Pranksters a pep talk in which he tells them to keep doing their "thing" and not apologize for it. He wants them to be up front (or "out front") with each other, even their worst habits and thoughts. Believing everyone's personality and experiences were valid and correct, he forbade outside intervention.”Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Kesey was in radical support of individuals leaning into themselves – the entirety of themselves. In doing so, we coexist in a space where nothing is make-believe. No tooth fairies. No Santa Claus. In those candy coated landscapes, we do a disservice to ourselves. We undermine our greatest potential by tip-toeing through a world of facades. It is only when we face the truth of ourselves – for better or worse – that we expand and grow.
There is an old adage when it comes to love: that we cannot love another until we love ourselves. Self-love and self-care are a feedback loop; sometimes we must work at one to improve the other.
But, we don’t always love ourselves or care for ourselves. It’s part of life. Shit happens. In those moments, it can become easier to make sure everyone else is taken care of or feels loved because we forget what we need, or we may not think we are deserving of those things. But, when we do that, we end up spiraling away from the full potential of who we can be.
And if love is both a feeling and an action; then it is our duty to continue to act in service to ourselves. To continue to love ourselves per airline safety manuals. Only then can we reach towards our fullest selves - both as individuals and to support others when they’re having trouble with their own oxygen masks – to reach toward expanding the collective.
As the Grateful Dead, patrons of Kesey’s Further bus, said so eloquently in their song Ripple:
Reach out your hand, if your cup be empty
If your cup is full, may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men