Capacity to Care

 (Posted in Facebook March 23, 2009)

I write this note at the risk of people thinking of me as someone who is very strong and a person who never had a moment of weakness. Well in fact, I am the complete opposite. I am weak and I easily get teary-eyed when stress gets too much to handle. And maybe people might think that I am trying to be somewhat self-righteous and good and that actually I am not. Or people might think that I am being selfish and thinking of myself all the time. Nevertheless, I write this note because I spent the past weekend (or maybe days or even weeks before it) seeing my friends and family problematic and unhappy. I was confronted with this huge question a friend asked me about life. “Is it really selfish to want a life that we live only for ourselves?” I’m sure a lot of people ask this question once or even more than once in their lives. My answer is simply “No”. It’s natural to want that ideal life where we can do whatever we want and never worry about anything else and anyone else but ourselves. We think about this during those days when we feel like our efforts are not enough and whatever we do we just keep getting frustrated and frustrated each time. We sometimes tend to give all of what we have and at times lose ourselves along the way. It is difficult to achieve that amount of equilibrium in this world where we can “love others as ourselves” as God wants us to. Either we love others more or we love ourselves more. Then the question of living for ourselves is not as relevant anymore as the question of “Can we really do it?” Can we honestly say that we can leave everything behind and not think of anybody else? We probably cannot. Maybe we all just need a certain amount of freedom, a certain allowance of time to regroup and think things clearly. We toil day in and day out for others that when it’s time for ourselves, we suddenly feel guilty. We sometimes have this tendency to judge ourselves even before others do. That’s the time when we lose ourselves, our focus in making others happy. Can we really make others happy when we are actually miserable inside? It is not so bad to have that bit of time for our happiness as long as we keep in our hearts what matters most in our lives and not totally abandon it. 

 

   I read from my son’s Christian living book (yes, I do learn a lot from tutoring my son) that to die for others is to die for God. And if this is true, then it is safe to say that to live for others is to live for God. And if living for others means giving time for ourselves once in awhile, whether to keep our sanity (as others put it) or to give us something to look forward to, then be it. God gave us an enormous capacity to care for others and if we let our hearts guide us and not be overwhelmed with our needs then we’ll all do well. I don’t think that people who are guided by their hearts and not just their needs can actually forget others totally. Quoting a website entitled Transforming the City: “No one but God and ourselves can be the caretakers of our lives. We must become somewhat self-protective (in the best sense), otherwise we will burn out or break down before our best years of service are fulfilled.” This is true and I do believe that we need to take care of ourselves and our needs every now and then, because at the end of the day, it is in going back to the ones we love and to those who love us back, that we can truly say that we are home. I learned an important lesson this week, it is not in the times when we think of ourselves that makes the person that we are but rather it is in the footprints that we leave in other people’s hearts when we care for them that define us. It’s the little sacrifices that we do that make people remember us and make us forever part of their lives. They say that life is short and that time goes by really fast. But one thing I hold true in my heart and I will hold truly to my grave, it is that life is not really short for those who live it well.-B.