Caring requires the willingness to feel pain. I am not being morose or dramatic. It is a plain fact that we do not like to talk about and a big reason why we try to care less. The more we care the more we risk our comfort –that is if we call denial comfortable.
The willingness to persist in the face of the this healthy pain that will occur inevitably in the course of our caring and continually figure out how to care more is a signpost of true adulthood. And really becoming less apathetic is about becoming a healthy whole adult.
Unfortunately, most of us have not been clued in to this important truth. We learn to withdraw when we feel the pain rather than open and move forward.
Our lives get smaller.
Our fulfillment wanes.
Before we know it we are sleep walking through our life. Then what happens? Maybe nothing, just the tragedy of wasted life. Or maybe something something big shakes us awake. Like the death of someone close to us or a serious illness and all of a sudden we realize what\’s truly important. We start really caring because of the recognition that we don\’t have very much time or might not have very much time. And now, it\’s in our face that if we don\’t start leaning into life we might never have a chance to do it.
There is only one solution to this predicament. We need to stop numbly staying our comfort zone and figure out what is important to us. We need to be willing to care about what is important to us and let nothing get in the way of our caring.
