I Can do It Myself! Sean wasn’t feeling too well. Pain was wracking him in several places—but seemed to be coming mostly from his chest. He knew he needed an operation. He tried to ignore it. Sometimes he felt good for a few days. But it kept coming back. Sean was afraid of surgeons who would cut him—maybe kill him. He had no time for being confined to a hospital and being forced into a long therapy regimen—maybe for life. So he decided he would take care of it himself. Should he meditate twice a day until the pain went away? Maybe some psychoactive drug would give him relief. He went through several New Age and Alternative Medicine websites looking for his own way out. When others heard of his choice of therapy they were in his face. Your life is at risk, they protested. You could die! But Sean said he didn’t believe in traditional medicine anymore. He saw too many people who either didn’t make it or who were left with weakness and had to go on a tough medical maintenance program for the rest of their lives. Some of the doctors were crooks or quacks, he complained. “I can do it myself,” he kept repeating. Sean was typical of his generation. It was the age of individualism. Sean would do everything his way. One of the sad things for Sean and many others like him is that he was mostly alone. No group therapies where people with similar problems supported each other face-to-face. Lack of community closeness, as psychologists and sociologists keep pointing out, leaves Sean at more risk. And philosophers say that Sean can believe all he wants in the reality he is creating for himself, but the bleak realities of life are going to rule in the end. And Sean will lose the battle. Like Narcissus, we can stare into any pool of water we choose but we are only going to fall in love with ourselves. “My way works for me,” he keeps saying. He is only fooling himself. It will not work because the harsh laws of this world do not bend to our prejudices, no matter how sincere we may be. Reality is what it is. It is not what I imagine it is or wish it is. He who doctors himself has a fool for a physician, they say. He who psychoanalyzes himself has a charlatan for a shrink, say I. And he who creates his own spiritual truth has a crackpot for his Pope. Self-delusion can do as much damage as self-surgery. Why would we want a “do-it-yourself” spiritual belief system?