I heard something recently that hit me pretty hard.
It was something along the lines of “no one cares about you more than yourself”
That might not be the exact quote but it’s close enough.
Now I make no secret of the fact that I am Christian (Catholic to be specific)
So this might sound very nihilistic at first.
And that’s because it is.
But (there’s always a but).
It is also filled with utility.
And in the right circumstances utility is a very good thing whatever your religious stance might be.
So what’s the utility here?
Well, it might sound selfish but you need to be very careful about the level of care that you set for yourself.
In the words of Jordan Peterson “Treat yourself like you’re someone you're responsible for helping”
Imagine you were your own pet and it was your job to feed that pet and you just don’t do it.
That pet will die.
Or at the very least it will go hungry and be miserable.
Well, the same thing applies to you. If you don’t “eat” then you can’t thrive.
If you don’t feed yourself then you will starve.
It’s simply not a responsibility you can forgo.
We all need to be fed in different ways, and if don’t get that food we starve.
So if you find you’re starving and you look around and no one notices, do not be alarmed.
It’s not about community dynamics or life being unfair, or people not being nice it’s about you. And it’s about staying alive.
So you can wine about the reasons or you can say to yourself like the proverbial vagabond,
“It’s time to go find some food”
And off you go.
And yes there will be kindness and love and support along the way… but you are not in control of all that.
You might say like Frodo in the Fellowship of the Ring:
”I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”
And if you listen closely you might hear God, Gandalf, or even a friend say something like
“So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
And so it is.
A bit heavy for a Friday but then again maybe not.
Go get some nourishment,
Ben