Why do I care so much?
We all build self identity on a judgment of ourselves. Am I attractive, am I kind, do I do enough for others, am I honest? Do I ‘care’ about other people? Did I try my best?
All of these attributes have good in them, but I have come to realize recently that what I thought was ‘caring’ may sometimes be an act of selfishness, and it’s caused me to go deeper and try to discover a more profound truth about my soul.
I now understand that I sometimes ‘care’ about others as a way to avoid facets of my own life that are uncomfortable to me. I have lied to myself, always finding another person to ‘care about’ and ‘help’ rather than spend my time working through my own problems, and facing my own demons.
Yes, there are people to care about and yes, I seem to be able to know how to help people in their time of need, but if it is at the cost of time and diligence I owe to others, then it’s a problem.
‘Caring’ is so noble, so good, that in my mind it has been beyond reproach. After all, who could get angry with someone who was caring about another human being. No matter that I was ‘caring’ to avoid painful but necessary growth.
I feel that I have been ‘Caring from Chaos, rather than Caring from Calm’.
I wonder if I am alone in this? My experience of helping people suggests to me that I might not be.
I am also suspicious that I use ‘caring’ as a way to create new meanings from old wounds. In my soul, I have created the association that if I use the knowledge gained from painful experiences to help someone, then it repurposes that experience into something different.
So in effect, I am ‘Caring’ for someone not out of our common and shared humanity and a desire to ease the sufferings of others, but out of a selfish desire to reframe my past into something I can live with.
While this does not change the outcome of my caring for the person who receives it; I have to realize that I am self serving as well as caring, and that can be a dangerous equation to balance.
I think that I will only achieve true ‘caring’ when I have healed my own soul, and no longer ‘care’ out of my own needs, but just out of a desire to give.
However, I will still keep caring, because I honestly don’t know how not to.
Why do you ‘care’?
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings