Do you care about what’s going on in the world, the environment, other people?
No…really, do you actually care?
The truth is, most of us only care about what is happening in our own lives –our small sphere. Most of us really care about cancer when we are diagnosed with it, we care about people with disabilities only until, due to unforeseen circumstances we get incapacitated, or care about the elderly only when we reach an advanced age or something happens to a loved one who is in that age range.
The power of caring is in the three last letters, which imply action. It is through action that we can make a difference.
Caring requires our full attention and the effort to do, or to avoid doing something; it is only visible from the inside-out, which means that in order to show that we care we need to take action on what we think or feel, so it can be made real.
We can talk all day about how concerned we are about the environment, but in reality we are not genuinely caring until we do something about it. Unfortunately, sometimes we need to experience a drastic event in our personal lives before we take action; for example, when fire, water, wind or any other environmental events threaten our homes, it is perhaps when we actively react to the bigger picture. This said, not even these emergencies are always enough motivation for many to start caring, believe or not.
But why is that?
For all I know, we seem to have enough to deal with in our lives as they are, and adding more stuff can therefore feel overwhelming, perhaps our survival instinct is limiting and we are unable to care for the collective well-being as long as we are OK, and our egoistic tendencies are so strong that they create a sort of barrier, and we may only act when we know that caring for that something (or someone) serves a more personal agenda.
A google search on “things to care about” gets lots of results; my search results were 15,880,000,000, a lot to keep us busy on that department, ranging from caring about us to caring about others, and everything in between: personal belongings, use of time, our careers, the past, our future, the list goes on and on.
As of 2021, we are at 7.9 billion people living on planet earth, and we may think that because there are some of us who are caring actively for what is threatening us as a species, say doing something about the environment, we should be OK, right? …well, this in itself may be one of the root causes of the problem. We keep the focus on ourselves, expecting that others will take care of things that impact all of us, so we just wait, and “reap the benefits” from other people’s actions. But many times there is not enough “caring” to go around and thus we all miss achieving the results we collectively want to see happening.
Let’s explore what is going on.
We are “busy”
Whether we live alone or have a large family, the day to day activities consume us. Out of our 24-hour day, 7 or 8 of those hours are allocated to sleeping (more or less depending on our age), another 6 to 8 hours we are supposed to be working (depending on what you do), we need time for attending to our basic biological needs, let’s say 2 hours (e.g., eat, stay hydrated, bathroom, etc.), and roughly we need the remaining time for ongoing maintenance and must-do activities of all sorts (chores, errands, doctors, driving, exercising, sex, preparing meals, gardening, studying, etc.). Notice that I am not including time we spend in the “virtual” world — television, the internet, or time lounging, which adds up.
Technically, during this 24 hour time frame, our main concern is to focus on activities for our own care (or for those in our care), either physical or mental (unless your job is literally working on the environment, or you are being paid to care for the elderly, patients at a hospital, animals etc.).
How we could solve our “busyness” in favour of caring for a greater good?
For starters, talking about protecting the local environment, there are many micro-actions that we can include in our daily routines. We can reduce the temperature of the thermostat (even more so if is fueled by coal, oil, kerosene or natural gas which cause air pollution and are detrimental to the environment), in return we are going to sleep better because our body needs a cool environment as our temperature naturally drops during sleep, 18 degrees Celsius is ideal to have a good night’s sleep.
Buying groceries? Don’t get plastic bags; bring cloth bags or a container. Need to go to work? Use public transportation as often as possible. Using disposable masks? Take a few seconds to cut the loops so animals don’t get entangled in them.
We are surviving
The tasks we instinctively prioritize are those aligned to our survival needs. Many of them were mentioned above in the 24-hour daily activities, which fulfill our physiological needs (food, shelter, clothing, health). Other essential needs are our safety and security, which keep us safe from harm.
It is only human to prioritize our survival to fulfilling the needs that are not met in our lives. When we are sick, healing our bodies becomes priority; if we are restrained for whatever reason (psychologically, physically), pursuing freedom becomes a pressing matter, even if it takes risking our own lives; if we are struggling to feed our families, food security is our primary concern. If a person doesn’t have a place to call home, or struggle to meet the most basic needs, how can we expect that someone to care about others, never mind the global environment (although it does happen, it is seldom seen).
How we could solve our survival needs in favour of a greater good?
Two words: reaching out. We are a social species. Since we are born, humans cannot survive without others; by engaging with our community we can both get help, and in time help others.
There are organizations dedicated to alleviate homelessness, food banks and shelters, there are family and friends, neighbours, and good Samaritans who are willing to help. Reach out! And let others help you.
We are good
The last thing our ego wants is to feel bad, guilty or fearful, so it creates boundaries, moving us away from anything that makes us feel threatened, away from the thought that it is partly our fault the planet is sick. We want to be right, we want to be admired, and we want to feel important, unique or special. That is our ego, and it will avidly fight to keeping its “rightful” place in our heads, as a result we end up blaming others for what’s going on, we will point our finger towards another country far away from us, in an effort to feel reassured that whatever is happening will/does not impact us, so we feed our values and beliefs with whatever favours us, so that our thoughts are safe, which is all that matters to the egoistic mind.
How we could manage our ego in favour of a greater good?
This one is easy to say, and excruciatingly difficult to do: increasing awareness of what we think, say and do. As a baby-step, we can start by paying attention to any judgmental thoughts in our head.
Try this: Catch a judgemental thought crossing your mind (someone else’s actions, personal appearance, comments or views of life/environment), and write or record your thought; then, read it out loud or play it back. As you do that, ask yourself: how does that though dictate what I say and do?
Whether it is about the environment, about a person outside our social circle, or the life of other species, caring is how we show true kindness and generosity.
For caring, we need to do,
For doing, we need to get less “busy”, overcome our survival mode, and get out of our heads.
How caring are you?
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