Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of issues to care about?
You need to care about climate change. And access to education. And clean water. And the rights of transgender people. And plastic pollution. And people living in war zones. And endangered animals. And the rights of disabled people. And the housing crisis. And food safety regulations. And racism. And… right now you probably feel stressed out because I didn’t even mention that other super important cause yet that you also need to care about, on top of all of these. And on top of all the others I didn’t even mention yet either. And on top of keeping yourself alive and fed and clean and from spiraling.
You’re only one person. You don’t have the money to donate to all these causes or the time to volunteer for all these causes or even the mental capacity to think about all these causes at all times. And admitting that makes you feel like a terribly useless, selfish waste of a human being.
If you relate to that, here are a few comforting thoughts for you:
The very fact that you even stress about this already shows you’re not selfish. A selfish person doesn’t care about making the world a better place for everyone. But you care. You want to help. You have a big heart. So big in fact that you feel selfish for not being able to dedicate yourself to doing everything and helping everyone all at once. That’s, like, the opposite of selfish!
Keep being soft and caring. Those are wonderful traits to have. You don’t need to make your heart smaller to stop stressing. Instead, it may help to remember that
Stressing alone doesn’t equal activism
the people who make the biggest difference are often the ones who dedicate themselves to one cause
good causes are interconnected
What do I mean by that? Well, even if you feel like you have a moral obligation to help as much as you can - you do not have a moral obligation to stress as much as you can. In fact, the latter can get in the way of the former! Think about it: you can spend all your free time scrolling through awareness posts for a hundred different causes and, well, being aware and worried and stressed out about all these things - or you could go out and give a homeless person a bottle of water and some money. That’ll probably take up less time, leave you less exhausted and make you feel better about the world and your place in it. It’ll not fix homelessness or the systemic injustices that fuel it - but it will make this one persons day a little bit easier.
Point is: Stressing about a hundred causes does less than just picking one cause and actually doing something for it.
Now you may think „that’s all fine and well but how do I ever pick just one thing? I can’t give up on caring about everything else“ - and luckily you don’t need to! If you get actively involved in one thing, you’ll always end up learning about and helping with other causes, too.
That’s because it’s all interwoven. Let’s say you find that helping homeless people in your neighborhood is the one thing you can dedicate your big heart to without burning out - you’ll quickly see that your one cause is connected to many other causes: the housing crisis, mental health awareness, poverty, discrimination (such as racism or transphobia), even climate change (to just name a few!).
Or take clean air as another example: Fighting for clean air is an important thing in itself - but it also reduces emissions and slows climate change, and it even improves public health, which in turn helps marginalized communities!
Helping at one corner will shine a light on the connecting causes as well. You’ll help with one important puzzle piece in a big puzzle - without burning yourself out trying to do the whole puzzle by yourself.
snowghoul
kaledo-art
germansingergirl
