Our lives are a conglomeration of nature and nurture. We learn from our environment, how we are raised, our life experiences, and we adjust. Seligman and Maier in 1967 did a study which identified learned helplessness as a phenomenon in dogs. (Sadly) Psychologists did experiments on dogs and found when they were exposed to repeated shocks that they could not control, the animals abstained from taking action when they could prevent the shocks. This coined the term and theory of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness has been associated with and used as an explanation for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in humans. The main features of learned helplessness are lack of motivation, difficulty learning from success and perceived emotional numbness.
In Season 4, episode 4 of Parks and Recreation, Donna (Retta) and Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) created the tradition of “Treat Yo Self” day. In this episode, they can be seen buying themselves whatever they want for a day. After the airing of that episode in 2011 the phrase “treat yo self” gained popularity. In fact, some people (including the actors themselves per a Google search) grew tired of the phrase after some time.