You won't be saved. If you ever felt like you were alone in this world, you were correct. Now, let me tell you why that's a good thing.

Back in pre-lockdown times, I used to obsess over "fixing" people. I'm not bad at galvanizing people. I just don't think I ever set out to do anything remotely close to what I told you would save you. The image I had of myself was akin to the incarnation of good on Earth. Yeah, if you ever found me insufferable, I don't blame you.

I stayed too long in toxic relationships because I thought the girl needed me. I endured shitty job conditions because I believed my absence could mean the downfall of my boss' business. I thought others lacked the vision and emotional clarity I had. So, righteously, I fought nail & teeth for things that were ruining me, oblivious to the fact that if I stayed, it was because I was feeding my urge to feel needed. To me, the moral and philosophical high-ground were the smokescreens I used to make myself believe that fixing others literally meant I was perfect from the start.

Thing is, I've never done anything more than tell people what they should think, how they should see the world. And words are just words. I don't have to believe half of the shit I'm preaching if I know how to sound convincing. The savior's complex might be nothing short of creative avoidance. If I'm dealing with their shit, It's good karma so I don't really need to be dealing with mine. That's why now more than ever I'm suspicious of the help I never requested. I know where it comes from.

No, you won't save anyone either. Not because you shouldn't. But because you can't. Free Will, it doesn't work like that. No amount of exterior help, praise or spiritual teaching will ever alter the image I have of myself when it's precisely self-perception that dictates my self-worth. Most of our lives will be threaded on the fine line between manifestation and self-sabotage. I believe we are all in some way or form masochistic. We are because in order to have fun, there must be some  amount of drama and storms are few and far between. To evoke tension, challenge and adventure, we suffocate parts of our being that are well equipped to deal with our pain. We sit in the pain because we were taught that guilt was an adequate response to trauma. We sit in pain because our inadequacies are bred in what we call our identity. We sit in pain because we think we deserve pain.

I could count on the fingers of my hand the people I know that have clawed their way out of the victim mentality. All of them would tell you the same thing : the only person able to save someone is themselves. It's when you can't stand mediocrity anymore that you wake up to the fact that the ocean you were drowning in was merely a puddle--that you are far more immense than you ever thought you were--that the only way you can truly help others is by saving yourself first and hope that in your wake, you leave a trail distinct enough that it becomes possible for others to follow in your footsteps.

Personally, I don't want to live in a world of people just like me. For that very same reason, what helped me most probably won't help you in the same fashion. You've got to do the Work. You've got to ask yourself the hard questions. You've got to depart from the lives of people who are cementing you to the ground in the name of "love". In short, you've got to decide, even discover, what it means to be you.