The reality is setting in that people simply do not care about making the world a better place. It is breaking my heart, and I do not know how to reconcile my thoughts. I’m sorry to be such a downer here but I don’t know where else to share.
Perhaps the climate catastrophe, human suffering, and inequality is so large and so much out of people’s hands that even people who care have come to a state of learned helplessness. However, there are things within people’s control that doesn’t change. At work, I listen to a coworker frustrated about a simple problem. It would be a simple change to make this person’s job much less painful, but he “just works here”. It’s just such a dumb problem to waste hours of someone’s life on. To a certain extent, I can’t blame him, because a lot of people just work to survive.
I want to make the world a better place. A world where people have all there basic needs met, live in balance with nature, and have a right to self determination. A world where humanity strives to be the best version of itself. I can’t help but get sad or frustrated when I see something wrong. I can’t help but feel like I’m a downer to my friends when I point these things out. They don’t disagree with me, but it just seems like a depressing topic. People seem generally content to live their normal lives. In the same way, I can’t blame them. It won’t build a better future, but they deserve to be happy.
Maybe my coworkers are right, and that I’m too naïve. Maybe my friends are right, and that I’m too empathetic for my own good. I am envious that they can turn off the thing in their head that worries, or wants to make things better, and that they can just enjoy life. A more utopian future is generations away, or maybe never. If I can’t effect change, maybe I should find an outlet, or stop caring, or something. idk, sorry for yapping. if you’re reading this i hope you have a good day
Disagree.
Most people want to make the world a better place, we just can’t agree on what a better world would look like, and how to get there.
There’s a lot of people out there, for example, who think that the “right to self determination” is a bad thing because they believe humanity has an intrinsic self-destructive aspect. I disagree, but they firmly believe that a dictatorship is the solution and I’m being unhelpful because I don’t want that.
One of the hardest things I’ve been through in therapy was realizing that my parents really did think they were doing the right thing. They listened to the “experts” at church who told them that in order to protect their kids, they needed to hurt their kids. My mother dropped out of college when she got pregnant, and my stepdad is mentally ill, so neither of them were particularly well educated, and they landed in a cult.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, after all. People can be horrible and think they’re doing it for the greater good.