1:00PM
The world doesn’t need to be saved. My friends don’t need to be saved. My mom, dad, and sister don’t need to be saved. I don’t need to be saved.
When I see people suffering, I have a tendency to jump in and want to save them. To fix them, change them, repair them. I have a desire to wipe away all of their tears and help them last into the years.
And mostly I fail. I try to convince someone they should change and they become even more resistant to change. I try to save the world and the world seems to laugh at me. I try to come up with the best plan to save humanity and in the process, drive myself absolutely crazy.
Maybe the world doesn’t need anything. Maybe we humans don’t need anything—OK, maybe food, water, and shelter. Maybe we mostly want things and forcing people to want something can sometimes be worse than letting them not want it.
I can get stuck in these cycles of realizing that the earth is beautiful as it is and that people in my life are worthy of being loved no matter who they are and what they do. And then I see them suffer, or rather, perceive them to be suffering, and go into hyperdrive trying to figure out ways to reduce that (perceived) suffering. And then after stressing out about that for a while, I often come back to realizing I want to love them as they are.
I think about a friend of mine in a relationship with a guy that doesn’t seem to treat her well. I think about how she has had many opportunities to leave but for some reason, keeps going back to him. I perceive that her staying there is causing her so much pain and suffering and that leaving will be the best thing for her in the long term. Yet, telling her this doesn’t change her mind, and worrying about it frustrates me to no end.
When I let myself accept people and accept their behaviors, even if those behaviors may be hurting them, I feel more relaxed and yet I also wonder if I’m doing them a disservice. Should I help them if they don’t want to be helped? In which situations does one help someone who refuses the help? If someone is about to shoot themselves, should I try to take the gun away from them? Should I try to convince them not to do it? Does convincing someone of these things work that well?
I ramble on this as I don’t know the answer. When I let myself not try to save the world, not try to save the people in my life, but to love them as they are, I feel relaxed and free. When I think that it’s my duty to try to help them, I stress myself out a lot. But, if I didn’t try to help, would I later regret it?
I look at the situation of the world right now with COVID-19 killing people, fear ravaging people, loneliness ticking up day-by-day, and I ask, do I have to save people? Do I want to save people? Or do I want to love them.
Maybe I can combine the two: by loving people, will I save them? I believe this could be it.
1:10PM
