Burnt Out On Bogus Self-Care Your Bank Account Hates You

Dear Uncle Bobby, Everywhere I look, people are preaching “self-care” like it’s the cure for all of life’s problems. But somehow it always seems to involve buying a $40 candle, a $90 crystal, or a subscription box full of face creams I’ll never use. Is this really self-care, or am I just paying for someone else’s vacation home?

Exfoliated and Exhausted

Oh, Exfoliated, bless your lavender-scented wallet. You’ve stumbled onto the greatest scam of modern America: corporate self-care. What used to mean “take a nap and drink some water” has turned into “buy this artisanal foot scrub made from the tears of Icelandic goats.”

See, self-care used to be free. Eat a vegetable. Take a walk. Lock yourself in the bathroom for ten minutes of peace. But that doesn’t move product, so Big Lotion decided “self-care” needed a rebrand. Suddenly, you’re not “resting.” You’re “engaging in a holistic wellness practice” – with a $300 diffuser that spits out eucalyptus mist like a vape shop on steroids.

And the audacity of it all. Companies scream, “Put yourself first!” right before they drain your checking account on a subscription to bath salts you’ll use once before the cat knocks them in the toilet. It’s not about your well-being. It’s about funding Brenda from Marketing’s second trip to Cabo this year.

Want to know the secret? Real self-care is boring. It’s eating fiber. It’s saying no to things. It’s putting your phone down at night instead of doom-scrolling your neighbor’s vacation photos. But nobody’s making money off that, so the corporations keep selling us lavender body butter as if it’s going to heal generational trauma.

Uncle Bobby’s advice? Lean all the way in. Next time you’re stressed, don’t just light a candle – buy the $80 deluxe soy version hand-poured by monks in the Himalayas. Don’t just take a bath – import the bathwater from Fiji in single-serve glass bottles. Go broke in the name of relaxation. Because nothing screams inner peace like maxing out a credit card at Lululemon.

So no, self-care isn’t for you. It’s for them. And until America figures that out, we’ll all be sitting cross-legged on $200 yoga mats, chanting affirmations while wondering why our bank accounts feel emptier than our souls.