It’s good to care and, often, good to share. I’m using the word care to explain our action and reaction to both people and our environment. Just how we act or react to caring will inevitably also reveal our attitude to sharing. And the harsh truth is that if we don’t share then probably we don’t care. The other special descriptive word in this context is empathy. And I don’t mean sympathy.
Empathy helps us to feel as much for others as we do for ourselves. It’s like putting oneself in another person’s shoes and it enriches both our life and those who we are caring for. So, caring with empathy will profoundly affect every relationship we have – even with the environment. It modifies our relationship with a loved one as well as enhancing our own feeling of wellbeing. Which just goes to show that caring is at the core of our life. No care – no love.
As for sharing, well…can you imagine what a life alone would be like without an opportunity to share? To not be able to share some time with another will inevitably result in loneliness and is likely have a serious effect on our mental and physical health. We were meant to be paired and shared! And if for some reason we are not in either state, most of us will try to fill the gap, to compensate by actively seeking company either as a couple again, or within a like-minded group. I thank God, daily, for my friends and family!
Caring and sharing, then, seem to be at the heart of our lives, and in general, we love it! See, I’m talking about emotions here, again. Some of us ‘wear our heart on our sleeve’ and our caring, or lack of it, shows. When in a group, we tend to gravitate to caring people, don’t we? Well, I do, anyway. I also suspect that my readers will be ‘caring people’ who are happiest in the company of like-minded folk among friends and associates.
Still, there are many (probably all of us!) who for private and deep reasons just don’t ‘mix’ well at some times in our lives. Each of us, and our environment, are constantly changing – evolving, worsening, and getting better. In that state of flux, don’t be surprised if someone you know sometimes seems ‘different’; maybe less responsive or less inclined to want to participate in our lives. As we know, time is a great healer, and that phase will usually pass. Be patient, and like me, you will probably quietly pray about that relationship and seek the healing nature of grace.
Real friendship is resilient but also perceptive. We’ve all learned to accept that personal likes and attitudes are infinitely variable, and that journey isn’t a long, straight, flat, road. It’s full of curves and hills, sometimes unsafe. But along the way we’ve learned to accept diversity and challenges, and we know about care – in every sense!