To Care

To Care

John Paul Derryberry

There is a weird thing that lots of people do where we keep the idea of caring about people arms away. Worse yet, we seem to be trending the way of downplaying caring about others at all; moving toward a society where caring for others is not seen as a need, but a burden. It's a sad state if we land on that as the status quo. It's not a reflection of the people we turn away, it's a reflection of our community values and ultimately us as individuals. Our ability to care about causes that lift others up, that pull other people toward being healthy, and that provide space for as many people as possible is healthy, and it always will be. 

But the notion of caring is what we get hung up on. How much, at what intensity, how often, why should we, and what does it accomplish? Each individual person is going to have to decide their answers to those questions. But the answers to those questions always lead us to becoming a better person, community and society. I think we get hung up on the vulnerability that arises when we care about others. We open ourselves up to hurt, loss, and the possibility we don't like, how caring makes us feel in the end. Since a lot of us actively try to avoid those types of situations, it makes it easy to leave the caring about others at the door of our own home. 

It's a shame we find ourselves figuring out how to care about people who live a different life than our own. My own life has transformed from only caring about myself to caring about more and more people over time. I have found that my life has become more full, connected, and purposeful by finding the drive to constantly increase by ability to care about others. I have had to learn how to understand caring for others and the boundaries that must come with it, but every time I have learned a boundary I became a better person; more understanding for those who suffer, and more importantly it might be me one day depending on a caring soul. The line between healthy and unhealthy is thin, a lot thinner than we want to admit.  If we should care more about more people it might be that fact alone. We will need someone to care about us at some point. No one gets through life without the care of others. 

It's a simple message and thing to do, care about others. It's often baffling that we create situations in society where we do so little of it. Maybe because the implication is that we should care about people more than we care about ourselves. But that is the wrong way to look at it, because if we fail to care for ourselves, we will fail to care for others. We should be doubling and tripling down on taking care of each other, lightening the load we all carry. Life is hard enough, we should have as few as possible going it alone. My turn around started with someone daring to care, I only wish to do the same for as many as possible.