This was from 2018
But is still more relevant than ever.
An Open Letter to Those Who Still Give a Damn (johnpavlovitz.com)
Excerpt: ..."And worst of all, is how many people both at distance and very close to you, just don’t seem to give a damn; how the pain of other people simply doesn’t register in them anymore.
It seems like fewer and fewer people are capable of even an entry-level empathy for the suffering around them, and you’re seriously considering joining their ranks, because of how tired you are of carrying both your own and their share of compassion for a hurting humanity....
Whether you’re an activist or a minister or a parent or a caregiver, or just a citizen of the planet who is moved by other people’s suffering-you likely feel the immeasurable heaviness of these days. Sure, speed and activity can mask it for a while, but if you stop long enough, the reality of the fatigue catches up to you-you can measure the toll it’s all taken on you. I want you to measure it. I want you reckon with how tired you are. I want you to hear yourself exhale with the heavy sigh of someone who feels the weight of it all.
There is a cost to compassion, a personal price tag to cultivating empathy in days when cruelty is trending. There is in your body and head and in your midst, a collateral damage to you giving a damn when others do not, and it manifests itself in many ways: in irritability, impatience, physical illness, eating emotionally, addictive behavior, the inability to be present to the people who love you, an obsession with social media, a fixation on how jacked up everything is.
Notice these things in you today, and give them your attention.
Extend some of that compassion you’re so willing to extend to the world-to yourself.
Take some time to step away from the fray and the fight. It will still be there when you return, and you’ll be better able to face it.
You are in good company, so be encouraged.
Fight like hell to keep your heart soft, even while so many people have become hardened.
Yes, the world is upside-down right now but we can make it right-one beautiful act of decency at a time.
Get some rest and keep going.
The world needs people like you." - Pastor John Pavlovitz