Caring About Other People Is NEVER a Weakness
Caring about other people reflects our own desires, after all.
Too many of the people in the current US Government administration don’t care about anyone other than themselves. Read any social media post from the President, the words of most of the department secretaries, and too much of Congress, and it’s utterly clear. The message is guard yourself, your “people,” and fuck those guys.
It’s incredibly disheartening. What’s more, too many people are accepting it as the new normal and allowing the expansion of the artificial gaps and divisions. It doesn’t help that it feels like there’s very little any of us regular people living regular lives can do.
But there is something you and I can do, here and now. We can care about other people. Not just people we know, but people in general. You and I can give kindness, compassion, and empathy. And the supply is abundant.
It might not seem like much, but when attempts to take away autonomy, rights, opportunities, and more are prevalent, we need to resist locally, among our individual selves, first and foremost. From individuals, you can spread the good and caring to a wider body.
First, let’s address the elephant in the room.
You’re more than a cog in the machine
If many of those in so-called power had their way, you and I would only do what they tell us to. We’d be automatons, cogs in the machine of industry, strip-mining the world to make the billionaires into trillionaires. To hell with the environment, the average workers, and anyone or anything else. Do your part, and we’ll throw you some table scraps. Maybe. If we feel like it. But really, we give a fuck about you.
Spoiler alert: They do not give a fuck about you. But if they can use you to make themselves feel bigger and badder, they will. Until you no longer serve them or start to annoy them. They’re no longer pretending that they don’t loathe their own base. And yet, here we are.
There’s nothing you and I can do for the abstract world. But you and I can recognize and acknowledge that we’re not cogs in the machine. We’re capable of making choices and decisions to drive our lives where, how, and why we desire to. You and I can do this by caring. First and foremost, for ourselves.
Too much of the narrative has made self-care out to be selfish. It’s not. Self-care is the act of being self-aware and taking care of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health, wellness, and wellbeing. That begins by caring about yourself.
To take care of yourself, you need to be consciously aware of yourself. That means looking inside your head, heart, and soul. From there, you can see what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and what you are and aren’t doing. If you’re dissatisfied with this, you can change it.
Caring is an inside job. Yet we are all interconnected.
Caring about others is caring about ourselves
Almost every division between people is artificial. Even the physical, like skin color, height, body mass, and the like, don’t make us all that different. Moving into the not-at-all-physical, like religion, nationality, gender, and sexuality, the artifice is even clearer.
When all is said and done, we, at our core, are energy. That energy is interconnected. Thus, when you don’t care about others, you don’t care about yourself. Plain and simple.
What’s more, you desire for others to care about you. You want and need to matter. Big or small, all human beings desire that sense of connection, of mattering to other people, groups, and the world. Why else would we accept the table scraps of the ludicrously wealthy and not properly tax them? Because they tell us that we only belong and matter if we allow them to use us as doormats.
Despite the ridiculous narrative to the contrary, caring about others is important. We are social creatures. Even the most introverted people desire to be treated with kindness, compassion, empathy, and caring. And guess what? They’re abundant beyond your wildest imagination.
In truth, caring about others is caring about ourselves. That’s because human beings desire knowing they matter, feeling connected, and being noticed. When all is said and done, not caring does harm in both directions.
Why? Because you create a sort of feedback loop that widens divides, creates more misunderstanding, and undoes necessary progress. Change is the one and only constant in the universe, and caring about others helps us all work with change to make it better for everyone.
Lack, limitation, and scarcity are mostly false. Intangibles, like giving a fuck about others, are abundant. Amazingly abundant. And kindness, compassion, and empathy do not make anyone weak.
Caring for others is never a weakness
Let’s see how any of our so-called leaders would do if nobody cared about them. Ignore them completely, take away the spotlight, do you think they’d cry foul? Of course they would. But many still claim that if you aren’t part of their “tribe” or “group” or whatever, you’re “the other.” And the other deserves less. Caring about the other makes you weak.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone, and I mean everyone, desires kindness, compassion, and empathy. So, if you desire it and it makes you stronger, how does that in any way, shape, or form equate to weakness? It doesn’t. Is it in short supply, finite? It is not.
Along that same line, being “woke” has been disparaged as being weak. Are you for real? The opposite of woke and aware is asleep and unaware. How is being not aware good? Does that make anyone or anything better? Nope. It just means you keep accepting the shit sandwiches being served.
The only way to change the bigger picture is to start small. Locally. With ourselves. Once we’re consciously aware, here and now, we can practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is awareness of ourselves. When we’re aware of ourselves, we can then do more for others, whether friends, family, coworkers, or strangers at the convenience store. Ultimately, this builds more empowerment for everyone.
Caring about others is in no way a weakness. It builds connections and strengthens individuals, communities, and the world. Recognizing and acknowledging this starts us all on a better path. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather live in a warm and caring world than the cold and harsh bullshit too many so-called leaders want us to accept.
We all have this power. Let’s use it to improve things for everyone.
Can you see that caring about others as well as ourselves makes us all stronger, not weaker?
This is the seventh-hundred-fifty-third (753) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share my philosophy because I desire to make a difference in the world and help as many people as I can to find their empowerment with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to share and/or repost where it might do good for you and others.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
Also, please check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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