Overwhelmed. In describing how I felt after hearing the Supreme Court’s decisions this week, I describe myself as overwhelmed. In our country, it seems that we receive negative news every day. Caring has become a full-time job, and I'm officially quitting. After this week of judicial decisions, I have come up with three reasons in defense of my resignation.
1. I get to be a skeptic! When we don’t care, we go through life without hoping for anything better. As a skeptic, I wouldn’t look for justice for people who don’t have access to tutors, standardized testing courses, and legacy benefits. I can resign myself to knowing that when you work hard, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to have better. I get to resign myself to always being behind and never being able to fulfill all the things that God has placed in me to leave this world better than I found it. When I don’t care, I don’t have to hope or work for the better.
2. I can live a boring life. When we care about ourselves and our society, we work to make things better. This brings adventures and opportunities that I can forego when I decide not to care. I protect myself from the excitement of changing voting laws that make the ballot box available to everyone. I won’t see the next generation enter careers previously off-limits to them. And I can resign myself to not living in a neighborhood that doesn’t want me there. When I give up caring, I can succumb to living a boring life, reaching for only what is put in front of me by someone else.
3. I get to give up my humanity. The ability to feel is one of the greatest gifts God gave us in distinguishing us from other parts of creation, but those feelings come with complications. The possibility of feeling the satisfaction of making the world more just for somebody else is reason enough to not not care. Hoping that doing justice results in a more diverse world is reason enough to not not care. And to hang on to the best parts of humanity that are present in each of us is reason enough to not not care.
We’ve been given plenty of reasons not to care, but not caring requires me to give up too much of myself, and I’m unwilling to pay that. So here are three reasons not to care, but I don’t think they’re good enough reasons to stop caring!