“You don’t owe anyone anything” except you do.

“You don’t owe anyone anything” except you do.

This phrase has echoed all over my feed; the mantra everyone seems to favor. When I first read it, I thought “for sure, I deserve my own peace of mind”. Then I delved deeper into this mindset and I felt it eating away at the core of community. It’s true, my worth isn’t determined by what I do for others, but do I really not owe anyone anything?

our life could be like the Gilmore Girls if we cared a little more.

The more this mentality planted itself in our heads, the more it shred the delicate web of mutual support that humans were built on. Traditionally, we drank from the same rivers and cradled each other’s babies as they cried. Now, we have created an environment where caring is weakness. Acts of kindness and collective responsibility have become a secondary thing, we put it on the shelf and never visited it again. Relationships have become transactional, we have become emotionless.

Our shared humanity is diminishing, in the workplace, school, and even within families. You can spot it in the way people now treat their neighbors. This shift is especially worrisome because it's not merely about sidestepping obligations: it erodes the very foundation of our connections. Real community flourishes when we silently commit to caring for one another, even without an immediate payoff. When we abandon this collective responsibility in favor of pure self-interest, we jeopardize both the support networks that help us navigate life's challenges and the shared purpose that truly unites us.

The “you don’t owe anyone anything” mindset has, in many ways, become a convenient excuse for inaction, a way to remove oneself from the messy, sometimes uncomfortable work of building real, lasting relationships. It’s a phrase that has been co-opted to justify apathy, indifference, and even selfishness. A stark reminder of how an idea meant to empower can inadvertently isolate us.

In reflecting on this trend, it’s clear that the antidote isn’t to completely abandon self-reliance, but to reframe it. True independence isn’t about rejecting all obligations; it’s about finding balance. It means recognizing that while personal well-being is essential, so too is the willingness to invest in the people around us. Only by embracing both self-care and community can we create a culture where individual strength uplifts, rather than undermines.

So, you do owe people. You owe kindness, respect, honesty, morality. You can’t ignore your loved ones, you can’t cut them off without an explanation, you can’t be mean to the customer service lady, you can’t roll your eyes at your neighbors, you can’t miss your friend’s milestones, and you most definitely cannot leave them at a vulnerable time.

Our generation stands at a crossroads. We can continue down a path of isolated self-interest, or we can reclaim the notion of mutual responsibility. Acknowledging that our strength is magnified when we support each other. It’s time to rethink the mantra and ask ourselves not just what we owe to ourselves, but what we owe to the world we all share.