Somewhat oddly, I’ve been seeing signs of increasing S.E.S.S. amongst pro-freedom individuals, even us staunch individualists. On the one hand, it might be surprising that such individuals fall into its clutches now and again, but on the other, it shouldn’t be: we, too, are simply humans trying to find a good way through this adventure called life.

S.E.S.S. stands for “Someone Else’s System Syndrome”. I consider myself well-positioned to comment on it, seeing as I developed my own system (which I don’t follow diligently at present); and I still hear the siren song of others’ systems. Sometimes they can be immensely powerful.

I grok the appeal of trying to follow some system, whether it’s for a diet or parenting or organizing one’s life better or some other aspect of self-improvement—it’s alluring to think that we can plug ourselves in to some sequence of steps, and if we follow it accurately, we’ll see success. It relieves us of some of the burden of thinking for ourselves or attending to all that’s going on: The System has us covered.

But what happens when part of the system becomes problematic, or impossible? Or, despite one’s best efforts to follow the system, success doesn’t blossom? Most individuals, I suspect, would place the blame on themselves: it’s their fault the system doesn’t integrate seamlessly into their lives; or there’s some hidden failure that keeps success from emerging from the effort put into the system.

I think we tend to overlook this important detail: it’s someone else’s system. It isn’t designed for our unique circumstances and idiosyncrasies. And to the degree that one tries to shoehorn oneself into an ill-fitting system, there’ll be concomitant difficulties.

Besides, do we really need a full-fledged system? As Exhibit A, consider Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism. It was supposed to be The Way to liberty and happiness, and look what’s happened instead: many Objectivists (and a nontrivial number of objectivists as well) are bitter, narrow-thinking people who appear to have taken on the worst of Rand’s own character and ideas. I don’t think that’s accidental, by the way—Rand seems not to have studied or considered human nature in formulating her system (or she did and wholly discounted it). The management model applied wholesale to swaths of one’s life seems to me a sure recipe for problems. It begs for breakdown at some point, and worse, it sucks a lot of spontaneity out of life.

All this should not be taken to mean that I think all systems are rubbish and should be treated accordingly. (I like Callanetics a lot, for example, but that isn’t all the exercise I do, by a long shot.) However, one should keep in mind—particularly in this age of endless self-help offerings—that some systems are developed with the primary goal of draining one’s wallet, rather than actually helping. Setting those aside, it is accurate to say that many systems can offer good ideas for some individuals—but, with my deep distrust of any system qua system, I think it’d be much better to consider it as a collection of ideas rather than a perfect whole. A system may start out working well for a person, but as circumstances change, the fit can change.

There are no shortcuts or easy outs in life; other people can offer us helpful ideas, but because each of us is in a unique place, with a unique context (our individual combination of history, present situation, and future hopes and goals), any system is best treated as a set of rough suggestions rather than marble steps leading the way to paradise.

Now if only I can remember—and follow—my own advice ...