#249 – How can embracing 'I don't care' improve your life?

In our current culture, it's almost cliché that we all should care about everyone and everything.

If you're an employee, you should care about your company. If you're an employer, you should care about your employees, customers, the communities you serve.

Care about your neighbors, the raccoons meandering your block, the feelings of the viewers of your social media posts, the rising levels of the ocean...

What if we all stopped caring?

I'm not trying to be callous or cynical, just to get some pressure off our already overwhelmed backs.

Hear me out: the Ego cares about only one thing – itself.

When I "care" obsessively about everything that makes me uncomfortable (from my company's results to the ocean's rising levels), I do it to stop the discomfort. It's this busy-ness-fueled illusion that "at least I'm doing something!"

So, my "caring" about all these problems is in fact a coping mechanism with which I'm attempting to soothe my anxiety – it's, to put it bluntly, self-serving.

But if we flip the concept over its head by embracing I don't care, then we're telling our Ego that we're not taking its orders.

That we can handle the discomfort triggered by these thoughts (yes, my elderly neighbors don't have many visits; yes, the oceans are rising).

Or, like my son has taught me today, that being in jail is not a reason to not be happy or have fun. Like he said, "I don't give a f*ck that I'm here and so I can enjoy life."

Then, not nagged by our Ego's shoulds and pressure, we can lend a hand, when we encounter a situation where our help would be useful, and when helping doesn't mean sacrificing ourselves or "saving" others.

Where in your life might 'I don't care' free you to respond more authentically?

Love,

Carolina