Care can be having any sort of interest in something or sympathy for someone by putting the person or thing before almost anything else, what matters is how much you care. Though people believe that is the basis of care, one of the most important ways you can care is caring for yourself. Making sure you’re healthy, happy and in the best place you can be is the most important part of caring. This doesn’t mean put yourself before others, but that you should be certain that are on a path to being a better you. This can lead to caring and helping others more effectively as you will not be brought down by yourself and will be comfortable and happier with where and how you are in life. What is necessary for an ideal society of caring is with a balance between caring for yourself and caring for others. In a society where people don’t care for each other, it would become hateful and depressing place in which to live. It would not produce a culture of caring as no one would see a point in changing as it would not be reciprocated. These conditions would create an infinite circle of neglect, similarly, people not caring for themselves would make it incredibly difficult for them to care for others as they feel uncared for themselves. Examples of socioeconomic caring is people of higher economic statuses donating to those of lower status to help them with clothing, food or money.
Greed is what kills caring, jealousy kills caring, people who value themselves above all else is what stops people from caring for one another. There must be a balance when caring otherwise it will not be sustainable for someone. When someone put themselves before anybody else they do not care for others at all or help others which does not push on the importance of caring for each other. Looking at example of this greed that inhibits someone from caring is “The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace. Throughout the piece the main character believes she has it so terribly and just wants comfort and caring from her “friends” yet she fails to realizes that she is not the only person that is suffering. Wallace shows this here “The depressed person therefore urged her terminally ill friend to go on, to not hold back, to let her have it” (Wallace, 64). The Depressed Person is unable to see that her friend is suffering much more than her. Her blindness of other’s suffering comes from her in greed to know what people think of her and to accept compliments.
What keeps people from caring for themselves is a lack of self confidence and being susceptible to their inhibitions. People can view themselves as unimportant and lacking meaning which will destroy their ability to care for others, let alone themselves. In “This Wound is a World” by Billy-Ray Belcourt he shows how he looks for caring from others as he struggles to find it in himself for himself. He portrays this through lines like “i only fuck men who know i am beautiful for all the wrong reasons” (Belcourt, 36) in the poem There is No Beautiful Left. He is looking for caring where he knows he cannot do it for himself. He needs this help and awareness of his issues to make it so he is able to love and care for himself. Helping someone love themselves and realize their worth would enable them to care for themselves. Without belief in themselves somebody cannot care for themselves or others as they view it as pointless, therefore aiding with self-acceptance is critical.
Work Cited
Wallace, David Foster. The Depressed Person. Harper’s Magazine, 1998.
Belcourt, Billy-Ray. This Wound is a World. Frontenac House Poetry, 2017