When you were young, were you the one helping the injured child on the playground? Did you start a campaign to ban the use of plastic water bottles in your neighborhood? Did you make valiant attempts to save ants from obliteration? Were you unable to sit through a discussion of the Holocaust without crying?
And now, do you avoid listening to the news even though you feel extra responsible for knowing what’s going on in the world ? Are you anxious when you’re doing the laundry because you aren’t helping the homeless? Are you feeling guilty because you haven’t saved the most endangered animals from obliteration? Are you unable to sit through a discussion of the genocide in Rwanda without crying?
Welcome to your empathy.
Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
And, if you’re so smart, why haven’t you saved the tigers, developed a cure for AIDS, stopped sex trafficking, or at least raised several foster children?
Welcome to your social responsibility.
Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
Smart people don’t just win spelling bees or regurgitate facts. But you already knew that. What you may not know, is that your rainforest mind is made for empathy. Your rainforest mind is made for social responsibility.
But that doesn’t make it easy. It doesn’t make you Mother Teresa.
It makes you sleepless, cranky, annoying and no fun at parties.
But still.
You can’t live without it.
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Note to blogEEs:
Tiger photo from Creative Commons– https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0098009/photos/53936799@N05/5531959391/
Your comments and questions, your curiosities and conundrums, your rants and reflections, are most welcome.
I promise to share my thoughts about what to do with all that empathy and social responsibility. Soon. Stay tuned.
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