With the growth of mental health awareness and self-care culture, through social media, we have collectively begun to reflect over what investing our time, energy, presence, support, and kindness means.

While it may have begun as a phrase to promote setting healthy boundaries to protect one's mental health, “You don’t owe people your XYZ” has become a popular response used to address more complex interpersonal relations.

I have both used this phrase and been told that I do not owe people my time, my help, my availability, my presence, my comfort… but what do we truly owe each other? I attempt to find time for my friends even during busy weeks, not because I “owe” them, but because I want to spend time with the people that make NYU Abu Dhabi home.

I do not “owe” someone help but I too remember needing help and support navigating this place, and I remember the names and faces of every single person who pointed me to the right direction, whether it be the classmate who told me where to find the assigned readings in my freshman fall or the staff member who picked up my ID when I dropped it.

I do not “owe” people my support or advice or presence, but I worry when I notice a loved one is struggling. If I can help them carry their burdens, I will.

“Owing” people something assumes that interpersonal relationships are transactional, that a kind deed becomes a debt one has to settle, that a helping hand must be reciprocated and that time spent is time “given”. Even the words “given” or “spent” imply time is a commodity we trade with the people around us.

But interpersonal relationships are more than a transaction – they are vulnerability, honesty, care, kindness, love, joy, compromise, and sacrifice. None of these fundamental principles of friendship can possibly be boiled down to an equation that is to be evened out from both sides.

Being a part of a community that strives to be inclusive and a safe space means sometimes being on a tipped scale - you might need more help in a class than someone else, but someone else might need a shoulder to cry on at a given moment more than you do.

The presumed “discomfort” (for lack of a better word) of giving your time, knowledge, love or care might not be something you “owe” or have to do, but it is often something you want to do.

It is the compassion, empathy, vulnerability, and intimacy of genuinely wanting someone to feel they are cared for, loved, and thought of. We love people because we love them, not because they might love us back.

The things we apparently do not “owe” are often the things that are at the core of the most intimate and loving relationships - so is that result not enough to settle the “debt”?