Made to hurt

We live in selfish times. Just look around you. From the day you were born, your accolades and accomplishments adorn the walls around you. First baby tooth, first word, sport medals, competition trophies, certificates. Graduation pictures, wedding photos. We expect people to throw us lavish birthday parties, as if growing a year older is a great accomplishment.

There is no harm celebrating these things. After all, we worked hard at some of them. But it becomes so easy to slip and fall into the valley engulfed in walls of pride. We have been tuned to live in a culture where everything about us, revolves around us. Our pain is greater than that of our neighbour's. Our worries more burdensome, our burdens, heavier. Whilst we go around wailing about our trivial little disturbances, there are children who are starving, women getting abused, the elderly lonely, the sick dying. All around us, there are people in need of care. 

Are we so technologically advanced and so loftily educated that we've neglected the things that truly make us human ? Are we so afraid of being 'too committed' and the vague possibility of getting hurt if we draw too near to the fire of another's dilemma that we stop caring about the people who are REALLY HURTING ? 

So feel free to not care about others, feel free to only care about yourself, but don't go around telling other people how stupid they are to invest their emotions in the people around them. Think of the time when you needed help, think of that one fleeting moment when you wished someone had bothered to pick up the phone and ask about you, and realize that all of life is made up of those moments. Realize that you could be that person to someone else. We were MADE to care. We were MADE to love. We were MADE to hurt. In those instances when we reach out and feel the lashing of another's pain, it is then that we are reminded of what we are all here for. The moment we try to shut these off, will be the moment we cease to become human.