Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

One of the amazing things about being a human is that we care. We care about a lot of stuff, we care about each other. We care so much that we will give things up in our own life to support the wellbeing of our loved ones. We will give away our stuff to support the wellbeing of strangers. We will bend over backwards for animals, plants, and planet.

Isn’t that lovely? Why do I care? What makes me feel involved? How do I know that I matter?

We will even sacrifice stuff, ourselves, our very lives, to support intangibles like ideas, values, even vaguely formed notions.

And, of course, like so many other things, it’s a two-sided coin, or multi-faceted gaming die, depending on how, um, interesting your life has been.

For examples.

Giving my dear ol’ dad three Saturdays out of the month is a big gift. I thoroughly enjoy it, he enjoys it. I have a couple meals with him, I read aloud for a few hours, we have a singalong with friends. It’s worth having to spread a whole day’s worth of errands, tasks and so on over the the week to spend time with him. Worth it.

Letting my friends drop away, giving up my activities, and releasing my self-respect drop by drop for someone I really cared about who was handsome, charming as heck, negatively manipulative, and mean, choosing subconsciously to sacrifice my well being for his need to feel in control was a useful experience, but not worth it. Not worth it.

Sometimes we think we don’t care, that we are indifferent, when we are really just Pissed. Off. One good clue is if what comes out from your mouth sounds like, “I don’t flippin’ care!” Indifference tends not to be impassioned.

How do I know what I feel?

As I have grown up, I have sorted out what is good, useful, and supportive for me to care about, and what is damaging, unsupportive, and hurtful.

I put way less energy into crappy caring, and a lot more into the good caring.

Caring feels wonderful. That wonderful feeling makes it easier for us to do it. Making a difference is a nice feature of our overall sense of well being.

You are out there, caring every day. I know that, because I know you. Some days your caring makes you crazy, and you wish you didn’t care so much. Some days, you do what you do, and have no idea that your caring totally made someone’s day. That happens more that you think, too.

When we relax into our natural lives, we accept that we make a difference, we accept that our nature is caring, and we are easy and comfortable in that.

We also come to see that we have to make choices, we can’t actively care about everything. It’s like coming to terms with the fact that we will always be missing something, even if we never sleep.

It’s a marvelous paradox: The more I recognize certain limitations, the more freedom I have.

How have I changed from discounting my contribution, to knowing I make a difference?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11152013