Care Bear Confession

This past summer, I was going through a rough patch (heartbreak and a half, dear God, it was horrible) and a very well-meaning friend offered me advice as I sat next to him and sobbed, snot rampaging out of my nose and onto my clothing. He said to me, "Even though it's painful right now, keep asking yourself, 'Will this matter to me five years from now?'" He is a wise and successful man, so I decided to follow his instructions. I closed my eyes, inhaled and exhaled like one of those Punjabi yogis on daytime Indian television, and asked myself, "Will I care about this in five years?"

And the answer is 100% yes. I care about everything, past, present, future. Yes, I've gotten over painful events so that when I look back on them, my emotions are neutral. However, whatever occurred does still matter to me. I still consider them lessons, important experiences.

Now, everyone fits in differently on the spectrum of caring. I know people who are so unconditionally loving you want to smack them for making you look like a savage baboon next to them. And then there are others who enjoy proclaiming to the world that they don't give a damn fudge brownie about what's happening.
However, I've noticed it is trendy to be the latter, and those who do care are labelled as doormats, passive, weak, overemotional, or fundamentalist loonies holding picket signs to fight for a futile cause.

Well, I say NO (in my most Indian accent). We must care. Somebody has to care. The world would never progress if everyone sat around happy with the status quo. Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. all cared. Even Thomas Edison cared about giving humanity a lasting source of light. In fact, his caring enabled him to persevere through ten thousand trials to finally invent the first working light bulb. Heck, Steve Jobs is a very recent example of someone who cared for technology and connecting people. Every inventor, every activist, every artist, every athlete, anyone who puts in the blood, sweat, and tears to make the world a better place has one thing in common: they all care.

So, I am here to stand up for those of us embarrassed or ashamed of feeling strongly about something or someone. It is our duty to be true to our passionate, empathetic, sensitive, emotional, generous, and unconditionally loving selves. We are designed to be that way for a reason; because it is the strongest force for positive change. Never apologize for who you are.

May everything matter to you five years from now.