I care by not caring

How much are we supposed to be caring?

To be honest, I am dreading the 2012 election. I'm a white, male, pro-business, pro-Capitalist, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-balanced budget, Christian.

I realized I probably offended you.

It might be time to show how much we care, by not caring.

We have to rank things on a scale of importance. Here is mine:

1. Sharing the Gospel (but this is my job, too)
2. How are my family and friends
3. If my car dies, how do I replace it?
4. I'd like to get married someday...
5. Why can't some of my friends get decent jobs?
6. If UCO Pittsburgh runs out of funding, what would I do?

Let's admit some things: our sphere of caring usually starts with our immediate lives. If people lose their job--which seems to happen more--they're not going to be worried about Middle East relations and our relationship with Mongolia as a country. Heck, they may even stop caring about recycling. When money was tight for me, I made $11 trading in aluminum cans to a scrapyard. Boy, it was not worth it.

Now, let me compare my cares with some of the cares I saw when I visited my relatives in the Philippines:

1. Will I work today?
2. Can we put food on the table today? What about tomorrow?
3. Will I make it if I get hurt in an accident?
4. Will I be able to afford to go to the hospital?
5. How can I get some better clothing? Something without holes?

So, maybe my resolution is to stop caring about the political news. As long as the government doesn't collapse, then today is probably going to be a pretty good day, all things considered. There is tragedy in our country. But tragedy is not having your parents still using AOL. It's not still having a regular TV. No, tragedy is not driving a 1990 Chrysler LeBaron, with the mirror taped to the door.

Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake." The peasants of France were starving, and inside her royal lifestyle, she had no idea what was going on in the rest of the world. She just thought they didn't have enough vegetables and meat with their meal, and said they should just go straight to the cake.

With over 1 billion people living on a dollar a day (it might be more now that we inflated our money), it might be time to care more about simpler things. It also might be ok to not care about certain things.



**Note and correction: Marie Antoinette may have never said let them eat cake. Also, it would have been from a lack of bread, not meat and vegetables.