Most people will not care about stuff related to YOU unless in some way it benefits THEM; remember this.

I think I’ve written a variation of this a few times — i.e. most people tend to be full of shit, and most people tend to prioritize what they want to prioritize. Those are just natural facts of life, and definitely of mid-adulthood, and I don’t think you can really “get past them” so much as understand, embrace, and try to work within them. Once people in your orbit start having kids, the entire game is over; once you become one of the few people without kids, the game is over and the lights are turned out. Almost every thread is about those kids and what they did recently, even if one of those stories is “vomited on the floor.” And you’re fully expected to say “Awww poor baby” or “OMG Hysterical!” or you did it wrong. These are the general expectations; this is the field of play.

At the most basic psychological and neurological level, though, why would you care about something if it didn’t have some connection to or impact around you? There are billions of things that happen to billions of people on this planet every day. I don’t have the brain capacity or bandwidth to process all of those, let alone my own to-do list — which is not commonly that robust, but eh. So of course most people wouldn’t. They want some tie to themselves, normally in the name of personal relevance.

I can tell you how deep this shit goes, though: I literally sent out an email a few days ago about trying to get sober, which is a big fucking deal in a person’s life. About 600 people read it, and three responded. Three > zero, and I value that, but c’mon. If you see someone trying to better themselves, mention it to them. “Hey, saw what you’re trying to do, and appreciate it. Best of luck.” I just wrote those italics in four seconds. It’s doable. It’s completely achievable to do that for someone.

But again, most don’t. It was the same when I got divorced, as I mentioned a little bit in this post. No one really reached out. No one seemed to care. It was heartbreaking for a bit. I came to despise the term “I didn’t know what to say,” because it felt like the antithesis of the human condition. People want to belong; they want others to care about and include them. But oftentimes, it doesn’t happen unless you’re willing to bend into their relevance. (“Your child is adorable.” “Oh, you just got promoted?”)

I’m not trying to bitch about this, because I completely understand why people are this way. It’s just disheartening periodically. And then, the space I play in often is work, or talking about work and management and bullshit like that. Increasingly I need to play in other spaces, talking about friendships and relationships and masculinity. That’s my upcoming pivot. But in the work space, GOOD GODDAMN, for years now people have been writing about empathy and it’s only tripled since COVID (“Managers need to create safe spaces for empathy…”) In reality, people are barely doing this in their personal lives. Why would they do it in their professional lives, where the name of the game is often light emotional abuse and touches of bullying in the name of control, status, and relevance?

Empathy is not dead. I know many people who can practice it, and periodically do. But while you might be the star of your own life movie, you ain’t really the star of anyone else’s. It’s important to remember that.