Do you care too much? It’s time to refuel those empathy reserves

Some days there is no elegant way to sugar coat it. It’s just plain hard. There are no quick fixes or “five steps to finding your purpose”. No positive self-talk for a lifetime of happiness, or magical potions or miracle creams for instant transformation. There are no easy answers. There’s just a long, hard slog through the here and now.

A Mantra For When You’re Struggling to Care

On one such day last summer I was commiserating with a friend about this all-too-common dilemma and she revealed to me her secret survival mechanism. Whenever things get beyond bearable, she invokes the Struggling to Care mantra. As in: I’m struggling to care that… (fill in the blank here with whatever issue has you feeling completely overwhelmed, demoralised or discouraged in that moment, however big, small, serious, ridiculous or otherwise).

Riding The Outrage Roller Coaster

The truth of the matter is not that I struggle to care. It’s that I’m all cared out. Last year exhausted my empathy reserves and I just can’t ride this outrage roller coaster anymore. It’s like we’re having a collective meltdown that goes something like this:

1. Egregious act occurs, either human or nature-induced, somewhere in the world
2. The Twitterati begin chatting about it
3. Traditional media literally copy-paste these online conversations into what is supposed to be a news story, complete with a click-inducing headline and often very little substance or thoughtful commentary
4. 24-48 hours pass in which rivers of human emotion are poured into an invisible online consciousness
5. We all forget about this particular outrage and move onto the next one
6. Repeat cycle

As quickly as one crisis finishes, the caring moves on to the next. And each time we leave behind the clean-up. More worryingly, we often fail to acknowledge our own role in perpetuating this frenzy of #debates. (But that’s a subject for another day.)

What’s missing amidst this collective angst is any kind of substantial change.

Because substantial change requires effort and nuance and space for pause. It requires time to work through the gray zones, which aren’t really profitable or electable or sellable in our digital world.

It also requires the discipline to show up every day and do the hard work, even when the initial buzz of annoyance or frustration or moral outrage has worn off.

A New Cycle of Caring

During the tumultuous events of 2017, I often repeated the Struggling to Care mantra when it got too overwhelming. The words worked as a sort of inverse consciousness practice (aka survival meditation for cynics) to peel away the nonsense and get right to the core. Plus it provided some much-needed comic relief in face of mass existential angst.

But now 2018 is here. And perhaps it’s time to tweak my care practice a little.

I suspect I’m not alone in this feeling. In fact, the very same friend who introduced me to Struggling to Care sent me this follow-up quote just the other day: (Wording modified ever so slightly from the original to preserve a PG rating on CultureRISE, but you get the point!)

You should give a care. You really should. But only about things that set your soul on fire. Save your cares for magical stuff.

Amen sister!

I won’t stop caring, in spite of repeated pleas from those around me not to be so “sen-si-tive”.  And I’m also not giving up. Sure, there may not be a lot I can do on a personal level to alleviate widespread suffering in the world. That’s too big a task for anyone on their own.

That leaves me with the choice to either do nothing at all or take a new path altogether. A path that sets my soul on fire!

To find my way toward that path, I need to bring it home again. My own backyard needs a little glimmer of light. (Not to mention a couple of new garden chairs).

It’s time to look at what sets my heart alight and start there: in my home, my neighborhood, my workplace, my community.

We all choose how to show up every day in the places we inhabit, no matter what circumstances we face. Each one offers literally thousands of opportunities to practice respect, kindness and compassion.

So how about this for an idea: if 2017 was about collective outrage, could we make 2018 the birthplace of a worldwide snowball effect for positive change?

(Feature photo: Morguefile)