On Caring
Taking Charge of Your Own Life
The difference between those who do things vs. those who don’t is caring about things,
In other words, it’s giving a damn about things.
If you truly care about your children, you will find a way to ensure they’re happy and learning,
If you truly care about your relationship, you will find a way to be engaged with your partner,
If you truly care about your business, you will find a way to make it work,
If you truly care about your health, you will find a way to stay fit and eat clean.
And if you don’t find a way, that’s okay,
Maybe you don’t care about it enough,
Not everyone has to care about everything.
You also don’t have to achieve perfection in every endeavor you care about.
Perhaps you want to be fit, but don’t want six pack abs,
That is perfectly rational.
You care about getting fit in that case, but not making fitness your life.
It’s sometimes possible that you care,
But the problem is that you care too much about too many things,
In which case, you end up not caring much about anything.
It’s not possible to care deeply about several things at the same time,
Ideas and care compete for attention in your head,
So, wisely pick what you care about and how much you care about it.
It’s normal to care about different things at different stages of your life,
You will often see an ambitious young person who cares deeply about making money,
But as he advances in life, he starts to care about finding a partner.
It’s normal that parents might care less about their work than they did when they had no kids.
Recall the Shakespeare prose: “All the world’s a stage” and the seven ages of man?
The easiest mistake to make is taking the wrong path to care about things,
You care about learning, but all you got was a degree credential,
You care about building a business, but you pack your day with meetings,
You care about your relationship, but you shower your lover with mere material gifts,
You care about being happy, but you think money is the answer.
An even easier mistake is to care about the wrong things —
Before you care too much for status,
Before you care too much for money beyond your needs,
Before you care too much about what other’s think of you,
Before you care too much to envy other people’s success,
Think twice about how you want to live your life.
You could care, it’s your life,
But think about whether what you care about,
Is what you wish to truly care about.
In some cases, it is normal to care about things, and then to stop caring,
You receive new knowledge, new information that causes you to change your mind.
It could be a philosophy you adopted,
Or it could be a job you started.
But many people stop caring too soon,
They stop caring because the problem got harder,
Not because they didn’t truly still care.
In which case, it will be helpful for you to know that —
It’s true that as you proceed with things,
They don’t require as much care as they initially did,
The initial stages of caring about anything are harder and take more work,
Note here that the time period for “initial stages” is different for different things,
And for different levels of knowledge.
The initial stages of starting a business might be 5 years,
Whereas the initial stages of developing the habit of working out might be 3 months,
The initial stages of training for a marathon might be 1 week for a fit person,
And it could be 2 months for a newbie to running.
So don’t compare your initial stage to someone else’s,
And wonder why it’s easier for them and not you.
And don’t compare the initial stage of one thing to another,
They’re not all the same.
Examine each situation for itself.
But the good news is that,
As you overcome the initial stages,
You get better at whatever it is you care about,
It becomes more fun,
And you could even divert some of your caring attention to care about other things.
We all know this intuitively and rationally –
A new job has a ramp-up period,
A new relationship demands more time,
A new habit is fragile at the start.
But if you continue to care, it gets easier.
So, perhaps the answer to caring about anything,
Is to somehow muster the motivation to simply begin.
But, if you truly cared, shouldn’t that come naturally?
How then do you truly care about something?
I don’t know, I don’t have a good answer.
The whole point of truly caring about something is that it should come intrinsically.
There are several cases when people only truly care if it’s a matter of urgency,
If you’re about to be broke, you begin to truly care about being productive,
If you find yourself in the hospital, you begin to truly care about your health.
I wish we didn’t have to navigate such extreme circumstances to begin to care.
Why is it that some people truly care without it being a matter of urgency?
I don’t know.
Maybe they do have some urgent matter to tend to,
And we just don’t know about it.
Or maybe they’re able to see the long-term,
And know that if they didn’t care,
They’d end up navigating extreme circumstances.
Now, that’d be quite prudent for a human, wouldn’t it? :)
We’ve created a society where so many people simply don’t care enough about anything,
That is a sad place to be.
I’m sure you care about something,
You just need to dig deeper to find what that thing is,
Perhaps society has drilled the message in you that you shouldn’t care too much about anything,
That no matter what you do, nothing will change,
That’s not true,
The world becomes better because people care.
You could care about small things in your own little way,
Perhaps it begins with you caring to spend some more time with your children,
Or perhaps you care to work out once a week,
Or perhaps you care to ensure you’re learning at the work you do,
Or perhaps you care to save an extra $5 a day so you can invest it.
I don’t blame you for not caring,
The signal we get as kids and beyond is in fact to not care,
I don’t have to care about money because my parents will bail me out,
I don’t have to care about true learning because I can game the system to get good grades,
I don’t have to care about unemployment because the government will help me,
I don’t have to care about my health because I have doctors who do that.
So, then you ask, why should you care?
Because, in fact, none of the other people care.
They pretend to care,
But no one will care about your life, your health, your relationships, your learning,
More than you care,
If you care.
The system might help you once,
Maybe twice,
But the help will always be subpar,
Compared to what you could have done for yourself.
So, take charge of your own life,
Begin to care,
Continue to care,
And truly care.