It has taken me a few days/weeks to come around to my Word of the Year for 2024. To be honest, the last year, and the preceding ones have been difficult to process in so many ways. 2023 was the first year I spent as a working parent (or a parenting worker) - and let me tell you, it was a rough go. I managed it all by surviving (because I do it so well) and then crashed at the end of the year (there were many tears). There was a fatigue so deep, it was cellular and spiritual and there was no amount of self-care that would help me come out of it in a couple of days.
All the while, I was thinking about how I care about things. I cared a bit too much about things that didn’t need it (an email I forgot to send, internet rage) and not enough about the things that mattered (date nights, proper rest, walks with my small human). This compounded with the world that we live in - wars, climate change, interest rates, the neverending pandemic, oppressive systems - overwhelmed me (continuous headaches, insomnia, a body system that was blaring red signals). I had to bring it to a halt.
Care is structurally and spiritually vital. But there’s so much of it to go around and so many questions it surfaces. How far does our care extend beyond ourselves? To our families? Our communities? The world? And how much is in your bucket to care about all these things? How much of it is left for you? Maintaining your humanity is important - giving a shit is important. Being aware is important, but showing up is even more so than all those things combined. So then if you have a finite bucket of energy, how do you show up meaningfully as an extension of your care? And who or what are you having to sacrifice to do that?
There are no wrong answers here. All of us, in whatever humanity we have, care about something.
The things we care about are like the dials on a soundboard. We are constantly dialing up our levels of care on certain things, and dialing down on other things. This happens to be a negotiation daily on the micro- and macro- levels. We make a million decisions every day that help us define the sound that is the contours of that care.
In the last five years, I had forgotten to balance the dials. Some that had been turned up for decades were still on without serving a purpose. blaring in continuous noise - no sense of balance or harmony. And then I added to the mess by dialing up new ones. Perhaps I thought turning things all the way up would be a good way to measure the level of care I have for everything (more care is good, right?). Only it comes at a major cost on my own care. And if we’re all being honest, doing none of it well, and taking me away from myself.
So at the end of the year, I muted all the buttons except for the ones that were necessary (keeping myself alive). I focused on rest (naps daily), movement (walks), filling my bucket (reading) and reconnecting with the people who bring joy, energy and strength to me.
In 2024, I’m spending my year redefining how I show up in the world and how much care I put into the things that matter, that align with my values and that hopefully leave the world a better place, no matter how small that betterment might be.
I’ll say it again: Caring is important. It binds us together as one common humanity (albeit with a trillion differences). How you care impacts how you present in the world. And not all things deserve to be cared about in the same way at the same time - and especially not if they’re costing you deeply (and resulting in your caring less overall). The world needs us to care, but we must be methodical and thoughtful about it so we can have the impact we want.
That’s my focus this year. Getting the dials right.
A few things to read/listen to:
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagosky
Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
James Bridle “The Intelligence Singing All Around us” on the On Being Podcast