I was interviewed for this article for @voguemagazine @vogueindia by Pooja Shah, on South Asian women and why it’s so hard to delegate responsibility. But I realize it’s a more broadly universal topic for women, cross culturally-and one I touch upon in my book, Practical Optimism. Many women are socialized to equate personal value with caretaking (and this is across cultures), competency, and endurance. A woman is expected to endure, to tolerate, and wear her harsh realities as a badge of honor, ie “bardash karna” as I would often hear my South Asian female relatives say. There was often this implicit belief that asking for help equates to failure or weakness—especially when managing roles related to home, work, and community-and this makes us (erroneous thinking), less feminine. We see our relevance, value, self worth,and place in society as being directional proportionate to how much we are needed and depended upon. The idea of “duty” was very much instilled in me from a young age, in many ways to my detriment, as I share in the opening chapter of my “Practical Optimism”, in the chapters “Kintsugi”, on “Processing Emotions” and “Pride”. I also offer tips in the book on how to combat perfectionism and set more realistic and manageable standards, and how to be more compassionate to self.