being too serious

[missy]

Cran - no matter how much we may want to, we can't save the world. Remember, even Jesus said "The poor will be with us always".

Do what you can in your own little space. Hopefully it will be like a pebble dropped in a lake, and the ripple effect will move throughout the world.

And learn to laugh at yourself. I do a lot of that. Like "whistling past a graveyard" - life is too short AND too long to take very seriously. I truly believe G_d has a wicked sense of humor (otherwise how to explain humans???).

It doesn't mean I don't care about others. It means I do what I can. But I'm just a pebble, and can't make the impact of a rock or meteor on the world. If I help a neighbor, who then helps another, who helps another..... perhaps that will eventually turn into a cure for cancer or something. You never know.

Don't be guilty over what you have, be thankful for it.

[Jerry Freeman]

You've got me thinking.

Maybe it will help if I tell you what happened to me regarding this same issue.

I've spent my life trying to save the world, so much so that I spent many years working for a charitable organization so intensely that I burned myself out and ruined my health.

As I was recovering from the disaster I had created for myself, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I had made such a mess with my life. After all, all I had tried to do was to help other people.

Eventually it dawned on me, and it was the sort of dawning where the sky opens up and you can imagine that you hear the actual voice of God speaking directly to you.

"OK, Jerry. Now let's get this straight. You were trying to save the world, right?"

"Yes."

"Because you want to help relieve the suffering of humanity, right?"

"Yes."

"Are you human?"

"Well, I suppose so, but I never really thought about that very much."

"It's time for you to start counting yourself as part of humanity. It doesn't please me at all if you pretend that you want all humanity to be happy and you make yourself miserable in the process."

Somehow, after that epiphony, I was able to reset something in my thinking, and I began to discover that I can help people much more if I take care of my own happiness as part of the package. Another way to look at it is, if I'm to be a tool of God for good in the world, I will be showing respect for him if I take good care of myself. After all, if a carpenter had lent me a tool to use, it would be disrespectful (not to mention ineffective) in the extreme if I abused that tool as I set out to do the work.

There's a dangerous pattern in Christianity (and other religions as well), of seeking to suffer, of seeking to sacrifice, in the belief that there's something inherently spiritual in suffering and sacrifice. In my opinion, much of this is an exercise of small human ego and has nothing to do with God. In my opinion, great damage has been done in the world by a misunderstanding of the symbol of the cross.

There's a profound truth in the symbolism of the cross, and in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and that truth is very much worth seeking and assimilating. However, to misunderstand and try to live suffering and sacrifice as if they are inherent goods themselves is, in my opinion, a tragedy and even a sacrilege. There is such a thing as spiritual suffering and sacrifice, but in my opinion, it is dangerous to seek it, and especially to romanticize it.

One of the things that happened to me after I became sick from overwork trying to save the world was that my condition became quite "brittle." Little things would cause me to crash and I had to (and still have to) be extremely careful to take care of myself, to get enough sleep, to stop pushing before I start to get overtired, to avoid conditions that might be too stressful, etc.

The boundary between staying OK and "falling off the edge" is very thin, and I have to be attentive to a sort of inner voice. Whenever it tells me, "You're starting to overdo it. Take care of YOURSELF FIRST," I must back off. If I don't listen to that voice, I will crash, and the main symptoms will be exhaustion and a crushing depression I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

On the other hand, if I take care of myself well enough to avoid crashing, I don't just feel OK. Much of the time, I feel a sense of profound joy. But there's hardly any middle ground for me. I MUST take care of myself or I will crash and find myself in a living hell. But if I do take care of myself, I find myself in something more like heaven on earth.

In the beginning, as I was acclimating to this state of affairs, I went through another episode where I could almost hear the voice of God speaking directly to me.

I had been pushing myself to try to do something for someone despite the fact that, at that point in my recovery I was still very sick. I went through the usual crash, which threw me out of that state where I could maintain the capacity for joy and put me into the living hell of depression. But in this case, because I was so weak to begin with, I also had to deal with physical complications of having pushed myself too hard that were dangerous to the point of being life threatening.

I considered the fact that I now seemed to have only two choices, really. Either:

1) Take care of myself first and foremost, which meant I would feel pretty happy and joyful much of the time, or

2) Let myself be seduced by the impulse to rescue everyone and everything and be miserable to the point of risking not only my happiness but my life.

As I mulled over this dichotomy I heard, quite clearly, these words:

"BE HAPPY, or I will KILL you."

I have no doubt, they came from the Almighty.

Sometimes it takes something like that to get the message. God wants every one of us to be happy, and he will do whatever it takes to get that message across.

"All things work for good for them that love the Lord." You know I'm not a Christian, at least not in the conventional sense. However, there's a truth in those words that is universal no matter what religious label one happens to wear.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Doug_Tipple]

I think a lot can be done to alleviate misery, although charity is only a band aid, and that it will require a drastic rethink of priorities in western countries. It will require serious wealth redistribution, a rethink of why we produce and distribute and how to do it with a view to human flourishing and not profit and a very serious rethinking of our belief in reproductive autonomy unless poverty stricken countries can be dragged up rather than rich and poor meeting somewhere in the middle. Put bluntly, relief in the absence of a policy designed to halt and reverse overpopulation is, globally speaking, useless.

With regard to over-population, I read that the population of the USA will reach 300 million this year. Yet the population of China is four times that amount at 1.2 billion. In the next twenty years the population of the world is expected to increase by 1.5 billion, more than the current population of China.

I try to keep a positive outlook about things in general, but I must admit that I still worry about what these population numbers mean. For today, however, I am going to try to do something to help someone, if only to make a simple flute that they will enjoy playing. And I am going to sing a few songs. That always makes me feel better.

[FJohnSharp]

When I think about laughing about something trivial like football, starving children and leprosy victims

I can see laughing about starving children or leprosy victims...

But when you start laughing about football, damnit, you've just gone too far.

Man, that could have gone so wrong. But it didn't . Deft touch.

[emmline]

It has been said with so much more eloquence than I can say it at the moment. There's a ton of collective wisdom here.

God gave you one person to be. One role to play. You. You can't play everyone else. That's not in the contract. Work on you, and spread what light you can. You can do it with joy, like the Dalai Lama, or you can do it obsessively. But that obsessive thing doesn't seem to help much.

[Tyler]

Cran,

I won't endeavour to say more than Carol already has, because she's made a very solid point.

I would like to reiterate that, first, one person, no matter how small, can make a difference, and, second, one person only makes that difference for others when they have made that difference within the sphere of their own influence. What I mean by this is as follows;
I don't make tons of money from my various endeavours, in fact I make about as much as a school teacher. The grand majority of what I make goes straight into our mortgage, into the nearly $30K medical debt racked up by my wife's poor health and most insurance providers unwillingness to cover her because of her poor health, my student loans, auto insurance, baby supplies, and food. What we do have left over goes into savings for things we might like or need later on. We do go out to movies when we can, and I treat my wife to dinner every Friday, whether I can afford to that week or not.
Do I have much left over to send to the starving children in Africa or China? Nope. Would I send it if I had it? Probably not, and I'll tell you why; there are people that need help right here, right now, near me, and that's where I concentrate my effort. If I do not at least make an effort to improve life for my neighbors my worry and my charity is wasted.
The activities I am involved in are various and sundry, but the ones that I will point out are the ones that mean the most to me;
My Lodge is actively involved in a long-term service/volunteer project for the VA Hospital, the Shriner's Children's Hospital, and The American Cancer Society. I donate my time to these causes, and I am proud to say that I'm able to make a difference, no matter how small. I also work with individuals with disability and am an active crusader for the rights of said individuals. During the witnter months I do pro bono mechanical repairs to the cars of families who would otherwise not be able to afford to fix their cars, and thereby enable them to get to their work and consequently enable them to provide for their families.
What is a $200 repair job really worth? To someone who can hardly afford to feed their family, it can be worth more than ten times as much; it can not only save them the repair, but might indemnify them from worse expenses like the loss of their employment.
The world says my time is worth about $17/hr...depending on the job comparison. Can I afford to pay that much into the causes I support, or the causes that awaken my conscience to a sense of duity towards my fellow man? Hardly! Not only would I be a fool to think so, but I would cause irreparable damage to my own family's well being.
The donation of my time to these causes that I can directly effect is worth many, many times more in dollar values than I can actually earn with that time. My time is worth a lot to myself and the people that I have a professional responsibility for, but my time is worth infinitely more to my fellow man in need. Conversely, I can feel all the pain, worry guilt etc, in the world for these people I serve, but without action my feelings for these people become idle and vain feelings.
I don't often delineate the activities I am involved in for fear of crossing the lines of propriety, but this is a point that needs to be made, especially in light of your quandary.
The time I donate to serving others is the most gratifying thing in the world! It causes me more joy than almost anything else. It cultivates a sense of self esteem not only in the people I serve, but in myself as well, probably more so. My so called "blessings" in life come from the act of serving my fellow creatures, because they are as justly entitled to recieve the same as I am myself.
I really feel uncomfortable skirting the line with bragging here, so I'll wrap up.
In summary, Cran ol' buddy, those feelings you feel are there for a reason; they exist to call your attention to the needs of your fellow man, but if you want to help your fellow man, render that help where it will be most worthwhile and to the greatest profit to those in need near you.
Sending five dollars to China will make very little difference in the grand scheme of things, but reading to a sick child stuck in the hospital will; unless you have excess money to donate, opening your pocket book or wallet will always have exponentially less an effect for good as rolling up your sleeves and going to work. While money is important to the causes I support, without the manpower and manhours to put those to use all monetary donations are futile.

[jim stone]

It has been said with so much more eloquence than I can say it at the moment. There's a ton of collective wisdom here.

God gave you one person to be. One role to play. You. You can't play everyone else. That's not in the contract. Work on you, and spread what light you can. You can do it with joy, like the Dalai Lama, or you can do it obsessively. But that obsessive thing doesn't seem to help much.

Yes, and in that process, it's a very good idea to be a 'one on one'
sort of person. You deal with who is there before you, not
with The Poor or The Suffering. I think that's very much the
secret of people like the Dalai Lama. Mother Theresa
said: 'I believe in one on one.'

Compassion is different from pity, Buddhism teaches. Pity tends to involve
a sort of distance from its object, a sort of aversion. It is
aversion masquerading as compassion. Pity says 'Things
shouldn't be this way!' while compassion accepts that they
are. Pity is sometimes called 'the near enemy' of compassion.

Compassion is practical, and it is most practical
when it focuses on the people we are with now, starting
with ourselves.

[Dale]

Not to hijack the thread...this is just a side-note.

Fresh Air, the NPR interview program, had a fascinating interview on Feb 2's show with John Tayman, author of the new book "The Colony." It's about the Hawaiian "lepers' colony." Amazing stuff. The audio is archived at freshair.com. Look for the Feb 2 show.

Dale

[Montana]

Cran, I have no idea how old you are, but you sound like every teenager in the world.

I would disagree with this. Maybe his angst is like every teenager in the world but I believe that's where it stops. If every teenager in the world thought about these kinds of things, I might be more hopeful. But my impression is that most teenagers (in the western world) are more concerned about their brand of cell phone and what music they can download into it than they are about the suffering of other people.
Everyone is telling Cran to lighten up, and while I agree with that, I am pleased that he thinks of such things. But Carol put it best - it doesn't mean one must be constantly morose. It saps you of the strength that could be put to better use doing something to change or at least ease the situation. Put that energy into volunteering, although take a lesson from Jerry Freeman.
My favorite parable is this: There was a guy who went for a walk on the beach. There had been a storm during the night and there were many starfish washed up on the sand. Further down the beach, the man came across a young man throwing starfish back into the sea. The man spoke to the young man, saying,"What are you doing? Look at all these starfish on the beach. Why are you wasting your time, you can't possibly throw them all back. What difference can you make?"
The young man picked up another starfish, threw it into the ocean, and said, "It made a difference to that one."

[Congratulations]

This thread makes me feel very selfish.

I think I'm going to go find a soup kitchen to work or something.

No, seriously.

[Jack]

This thread makes me feel very selfish.

I think I'm going to go find a soup kitchen to work or something.

No, seriously.

You should. We all should. We're all selfish and greedy. We don't need to live 1/10 as poshly as we do.

Everything that has been said is very wise and thoughtful. Thank you everybody.

[dwinterfield]

Lots of good long answers with lots of insight. The only point I'll add is that ultimately the only asset you have to improve the misery in the world is you. The most important arena for each of us and the only one we really control is the ability to touch the lives of the folks we interact with every day. If you want to improve world peace, be more peaceful with the people you see every day. If you worry about world hunger, share something with people in your community. If injustice bothers you, help those in your community are not treated fairly. If the news bums you out and the world seems like a miserable, dreary place, fight it with a smile. Cliches like "Commit a random act of kindness" are cliches because they are true. Trust me in this - if you try to cheer up the world around you, the world will respond in kind and cheer you up.

[Jack]

I have cheered up the world around me. I've done millions of little good things because I have been so blessed. I've made the world a much brighter place, but it just feels like, to me, that I haven't done nearly enough. I guess I want to make up for other people's lack in some sense or another.

At any rate, I've recently read, cover to cover, no fewer than 5 books by Sylvia Plath (her novel, her journals, and numerous poetry collections), and a couple more about her life, so I think it's all her fault.

[Congratulations]

At any rate, I've recently read, cover to cover, no fewer than 5 books by Sylvia Plath (her novel, her journals, and numerous poetry collections), and a couple more about her life, so I think it's all her fault.

I spent a year of my life reading nothing but Poe. It nearly destroyed me.

I don't suggest it.

[Jack]

At any rate, I've recently read, cover to cover, no fewer than 5 books by Sylvia Plath (her novel, her journals, and numerous poetry collections), and a couple more about her life, so I think it's all her fault.

I spent a year of my life reading nothing but Poe. It nearly destroyed me.

I don't suggest it.

I can't read Poe. Male writers turn me off (weird, eh?). They're generally too rigid, predictable, and stupid for me to appreciate them. I just can't help it. Everything literary I've ever loved has been written by a woman who had severe mental problems. I relate best to women with severe mental problems.

Come to think of it, the same is true for other forms of art. All my favorite musicians are women and my favorite painters and my favorite sculptors (ok, I really don't have a favorite sculptor, but if I did she would be a crazy woman...).