Giving People Your Best Self: A Leaner, More Altruistic Look at Mental Health

Hey everyone, Litsa here.

If you live in Austin, you’ve probably noticed that mental health has become one of our city’s favorite topics of conversation. It’s woven into the very fabric of how we interact. In social circles and workplaces alike, it’s incredibly common to hear people openly name their stressors and ask the people around them to adjust their behavior accordingly.

In many ways, the modern cultural approach to mental health has become a practice of shielding oneself—drawing hard boundaries to protect your personal peace from the outside world. And while setting boundaries is important, when taken to an extreme, it can start to feel a bit anti-social. It can turn into a practice of pulling away from the collective rather than engaging with it.

I value mental health immensely, but over the years, I’ve come to believe in a slightly different, more altruistic approach. I view things like a good diet, regular exercise, spending time in nature, and taking prescribed medications as the quiet, private work we do behind the scenes so that we can show up as our best selves publicly.

Learning the Hard Way in the Corporate World

I first realized this back when I was working a corporate office job. I had stopped exercising and was spending 10 to 12 hours a day glued to a glowing screen. Slowly but surely, the joyful, energetic person that my company had hired was fading away.

I had a major wake-up call: I realized I had a responsibility to nurture and protect the person my team thought they were bringing on board, even if that meant stepping back and working fewer hours to regain my balance. I owed it to the people around me to not let my environment turn me into a version of myself I didn’t like.

When we get deeply stressed and caught in a chronic cycle of fight-or-flight, it changes how we treat people. We can become short-tempered, cold, or entirely lose our sense of humor. Naturally, people might start to avoid us, which only feeds back into our own social anxiety.

When you hit that wall of stress, you’re faced with a fundamental choice: Are you going to ask everyone else to change their behavior to protect you, or are you going to adjust your own life to protect them?

The Individual vs. The Collective

Balancing this philosophy as a business owner can lead to some really tough moments. Once, I had an employee who decided to quit because they felt Dear Diary didn’t take their mental health seriously.

This team member had just taken two weeks off from work to enjoy one of our local music festivals. A couple of days before they were supposed to return to the schedule, they reached out and demanded even more time off, stating they were burnt out.

The missing piece of perspective was how that demand affected the rest of the shop. To make that initial two-week vacation happen, the entire rest of the staff had voluntarily stepped up, working extra hours and shifting their lives around to cover the gap. Naturally, after carrying that extra weight, nobody on the team wanted to sacrifice their own hard-earned days off to cover even more unscheduled shifts.

When the employee decided to quit out of principle, I didn't get angry. I actually gave them a hug and told them they were making the right decision for themselves. In that moment, our principles simply didn't align: I chose to prioritize the mental health and well-being of the collective team over the immediate desires of the individual.

Cultivating a Culture of Care

To me, true mental healthiness in a community or a workplace isn't about creating an environment where you can demand whatever you want at the expense of others. It’s about mutual respect. It’s about recognizing that our actions have a ripple effect on the people we work alongside and live next to.

Taking care of yourself is the foundation, but the goal of that self-care shouldn't just be isolation—it should be connection. When we show up healthy, grounded, and ready to contribute, we create a space where everyone else can do the same.

Thank you for being a community that looks out for one another, laughs together, and keeps our little ecosystem balanced. See you at the shop!

Warmly,

Litsa