Psychology says, “the less you care, the happier you will be.”

Jesus Christ preached in The Sermon on the Mountain, “So, I tell you to stop worrying about what you will eat, drink, or wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes?”

The comedian, George Carlin quipped, “when I first heard the song, Don’t Worry – Be Happy, I realized it was exactly the kind of mindless philosophy that Americans would respond to. It would be a great national anthem along with Me First.”

Caring, the well of self-worth

Doe the responsibility of caring fall on each of us, or does it depend on the subject matter?

There are people whom you may know that seemingly care too deeply. You may also know that person who lacks one iota of empathy. Are you one or the other? Or do you fall somewhere in between?

The new buzzword ‘self-care’ in these pandemic times and according to the influx of countless docu-series causes this owl to step back and ponder the ethics of caring about anything.

When it is all too much to care or not to care can lead to any number of different responses:

• Oversimplification
• Angry outbursts
• Impatient mistakes
• Sullen silence
• Convenient deafness

When is less caring more or caring more irresponsible?

Whether it is that new catchphrase work-life balance, over-indulgent, narcissistic relationships, media tinnitus, or pandemic isolation that is causing me to wonder about my caring gene or the caring genes of others, it must be time to clean out the owl box and set new caring boundaries.

Happiness is inconsistent. Happiness is bipolar, a transistor of positive and negatives charges that motivates a particular caring response.

We can ask the questions:

Does caring less make one happier?

Is there less anxiety when one cares less about how much food and clothes one has?

Does singing an anthem of me first an unethical response to the treatment of others?

I contend there is a time to care and there is a time to put the caring in the fuck-it bucket and the only thing one needs to care about at that precise moment is answering the question, who is hurting right now, this second? Chances are the person asking the question.

I have learned from my own experience with leukemia the connection between caring and happiness. Setting boundaries in our friendships, family relationships, and work identity is key to caring for ourselves, others, and the hurting world we live.

The harmony of caring in mind, body, and spirit comes from our own well of self-worth. When one cares enough about their own mind, body, and spirit, then one knows how much and when to care on any given day beyond oneself. If each of us gave up all the self-evaluating about how much we have or when we will have it, about the imminence of death, life after death, and death itself, perhaps we can begin to care about purpose of our caring and live a happier life before death.

Peace,

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