At first glance, this may seem like an unusual topic for this site, however, in my interactions with people, and in the world at large, I have found there are many people who care about little, or even nothing. There are some people who have a general disdain for humanity, and their fellow human beings, and whose attitude is “I could not care less.” When someone adopts this view of the world, it is easy to hold onto other, equally negative, perceptions and beliefs that, in time, combine to create a damaging self fulfilling prophecy. Sadly, the media often play into this negativity, resulting in masses of people who care only about themselves and their immediate families. The expression, “care about something” is meant to convey the idea that, if we care about people and things beyond our immediate daily routines, we are far more likely than otherwise to have positive regard for other people, including those who are vastly different from ourselves. In addition to caring about my work as a social psychologist, whose role it is to help others through my research and consulting business, there are numerous other “causes” I care about, including music, freedom of expression, the environment, animals, art, etc. etc. The list of things I care about could go on and on, but the point is to have things that make us happy, fulfilled, and a part of events that are well beyond the mundane. What do you care about? Why?
As we have pointed out in these posts is that the scheme is one of us thinks of a topic and becomes the 1st writer. The other of us responds. As a result, I sometimes have to think about the topics and why they resonated with Melissa. This is one of those but, as I read what she wrote, I realized that a fundamental aspect of life, and work, is caring about something, even oneself. More specifically, I started thinking that if you don’t care about anything, you are probably not a good prospective employee. We know employees are not going to care about the same things we do, certainly not about our company. But, if they show no care or concern for anything, then there is no way they would be dedicated to providing excellent service to clients. Beyond that, it is also clear that some people can care about some of the same things, but from different perspectives. I recently spent time with a group of duck hunters, all of whom were passionate about the environment in which they spent as much time as they possibly can – the wild Florida outdoors. Some people might find it hard to relate to hunters carrying about the environment or animals, but their care was a passion far above that of many environmentalists I have heard because they spend so much time with their feet in the water, mud, or dirt and watching the impact of careless people on a first hand basis. Think about how your cares define your life.
Comments are closed.