It's Time for a Reset

Ourselves, Charlotte Mason Volume 4 ( Part II The House Of Mind); Part III -The House Of Heart - Chapter 2. Love's Lords In Waiting: Pity

There’s so much pain in the world right now and everywhere we turn, the news reminds us about it. I often wonder if we are built to expose ourselves to so much suffering through the news, especially when we’re powerless to change most of it. You start out feeling empathy, but after a while, you just go numb. It’s happening to people you don’t know, far away, and it feels like it can’t touch you. Or so you tell yourself.

What is a world without empathy? What kind of world teaches us to say, ‘Oh no,’ and then carry on like it’s nothing? How much harder do our hearts grow each time we do that? How quietly does the shift from feeling to unfeeling creep in, shaped by the news and media we consume?

It’s not empathy if we aren’t stirred to action. It’s not empathy if we aren’t moved to do something, no matter how small. Without that, it’s only pity. It fades as quickly as a wave breaking on distant shores.

We carry that same numbness home too. We stop caring the moment we aren’t directly affected. We tell ourselves we’re just minding our own business, and then in the same breath we long for the good old days when people cared. Deep down we know something’s missing, but we don’t see that what’s missing might be inside us too.

Sometimes it’s even worse, when all we feel is self-pity. Suddenly it’s all about how hard we have it, how badly we feel. The neighbour who didn’t greet us right, the friend who seemed distant and we take every slight personally. Together we’ve built a world with no grace, no room for mistakes, no space for someone to make things right.

We need a reset button. We can’t keep going like this.