Caring too MUCH... not Caring ENOUGH...

There are likely a large number of people I know/have known who would happily step forward and declare that I "care too much" about others, and about the world.

It's true. Perhaps I do.

But it's not in a creepy, self-serving, simpering "I want to be LIKED" sort of way, it's in the sense of wanting to do the right thing in life, regardless of whether that's the generally used approach or even "popular," as part of greater culture.

When I say I "care," it might be something as simple as not running my weed whacker at 8:00am on Sunday morning, even if the edging really does need doing, and it's going to rain soon. Because who the hell wants to be woken up by the sound of a weed whacker on Sunday morning?

Side note: the sound of gas powered weed whackers is likely my 3rd least favorite noise in the world.

In the past, when asked what my general philosophy/approach to life was, I was most likely to say that I didn't really have one, except for "Don't be shitty."

Of course, that does leave some room for interpretation, and one person's "shitty" is not always another's.

Personal experience — as the decades have rolled by — has taught me that a lot of people who might at first glance seem like they are being shitty are actually just being selfish, and not paying attention to any impact they are having, further away than maybe arm's-length in front of them.

Which takes on another "time travelling" journey, this time back to my days at boarcding school, in the UK.

I remember one time, sitting in the senior common room on a Sunday morning, watching TV with nobody else in the room and ending up watching Open University and a lecture on "consequential thinking."

Various parts of that lecture has stuck with me for all these years. But in retrospect I have come to realize how little most people are even aware of the fact that almost all our choices (which we likely don't contemplate beyond the perceived beneficial outcome WE hope to get) have impacts all around us.

Much of it is so small we don't even grasp it... and yet can end up being the cause of serious friction in families; in relationships.

• When you take the last cold beer out of the fridge, put some more beer in to cool!
• If you eat the last of the cereal, put "cereal" on the shopping list!
• If the car is sort of low on gas and you know your partner has an early appointment, take five minutes to go out of your way and fill it up!"
• Even if you do need to mow your lawn, don't do it at 8:00am on Sunday morning!

And those are just some of the small things... and we tend to let them slide because they seem so trivial and we often don't even notice... UNTIL we happen to be on the receiving end!

Life is mysterious, though... one of the very strange — but quite common — phenomena I have observed repeatedly in this world is that people who "care too much" seem to disproportionately end up partnered with people who are "not caring enough."

There was a time when I actually bought into the popular rationalization that it happens because people "complement each other's strengths and weaknesses," but passing time now files that notion under "so much bullshit."

More likely we haven't finished doing the personal work on ourselves, in which we discover that (as carers) that we fear we lack value, absent someone to mop up after. Meanwhile, life's non-carers haven't done the work in which they recognize that they need to take care of themselves and not treat those around them as servants.

In truth, I don't care less than I used to... I have just grown more discerning as to where I use that care!

Thanks for visiting, and have a great remainder of your weekend!

How about you? Do you tend to care too much? Or have you ever been told that you don't care ENOUGH, or even that you're too selfish? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2025.07.12 22:26 PDT
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