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Issue Sickness: What Your Compassion Fatigue Might Say About You

The other day I was reading the thread from a previous blog post of mine that a friend had shared on her timeline. A woman I’d never met before had provided the following response:

“I agree with this. I mean, I know it happens, but frankly I’m sick of even talking about this issue anymore.”

Issue sickness.

None of us are immune.

It doesn’t matter what the issue is.

When it comes to the suffering that happens in the world, we have a really low saturation point for the stuff that doesn’t hit too close to home.

We’re good with empathy, within reason.

We’re OK with compassion, but not to excess.

We can manage some momentary concern for the painful experience of others out there, but it isn’t sustainable.

There may even be genuine emotion for a short time, but it doesn’t last.

Maybe it’s because of the instantaneous connectivity we’ve grown accustomed to. We get information so quickly and in such volume, that we’ve simply lost the ability to have our attention held for any length of time. The flood and ferocity of stories moving past our eyes are simply too great, and we find ourselves perpetually in search of something else to grab hold of our hearts. It could be, that we’re just victims of the blinding pace of our daily experience. We have so little emotional bandwidth to spare on any given thing. Speed has left us compassion-crippled.

Maybe it’s because we overestimate the value of our limited attention. We think that simply because we’re now aware of something, that something is no longer a problem. We’ve heard about it. We’ve read about. We’ve shared an article about it. Heck, we’ve even been pretty darn upset about for a day or two. We imagine somehow that this is enough. We feel good about ourselves for feeling bad, and we believe that we’ve made a difference, simply for expending emotion, fleeting as that may be. The problem simply can’t exist now that we have considered it. We’re honestly caring, but rather naive.

Yes, that might be part of it. It may be the rapid pace at which we live. It may be that we don’t quite realize just how deep and serious the issues are, and we want them to be easier and simpler.

But that might not be what’s really going on here, either.

Maybe it’s more personal and insidious than that.

Maybe it’s an inside job.

Maybe if we’re honest, we really just don’t give half a damn about stuff that we don’t think is our problem, and so we easily tire of it.

We don’t fully bear the brunt of something, so it’s not worth hurting over too much or thinking about for too long.

We quickly grow weary of other’s wars and wounds.

It’s a black problem.
Or a gay problem.
Or a woman’s problem.
Or families without health insurance.
Or sex trafficking victims.
Or the homeless.
Or people far away.
Or people who speak differently, or worship differently, or love differently.

Unless the issue is so close to us that it’s essentially us, we can’t be bothered.

The truth is, most of the time, when we express empathy with a caveat, when we say “I know it’s a problem, but…”, we really don’t believe it’s a problem; at least, not one valid enough to get torn up about or lose sleep over.

True compassion is one of the most underused muscles our hearts has. We so rarely call upon it, and so when we do, it tires all too quickly.

But we need to use that muscle well, to save others and to recover our best selves.

Compassion and selfishness have a really tough time sharing the same space. One will always squeeze the other out. As we suffer for another’s suffering, we live outside of ourselves. The plight of someone else, displaces our own for a while, and we shrink back to a more realistic size; far less inflated, far less important.

We place our ego, and our vanity, and our selfie-centered agenda to the side, and we choose to inhabit another’s hurt, despite it not benefitting us. That’s a sacred act. It’s a mark of our humanity and it’s reflection of the Divine.

I’m not sure what issue you’ve gotten sick of hearing about lately, but I’ll challenge you to consider what that fatigue says about you, and about the issue itself.

As many parents of young children can testify to, some times your kids’ crying and whining and yelling can get the best of you, and as much as you love and adore them, every so often you need to put on the noise-canceling headphones and give your brain a break. However, your kids may not have stopped whining and yelling and screaming—you just can’t hear it any longer. Sooner or later you need to remove the shields and make sure you’re still listening. That’s how compassion works.

Most problems don’t vanish just once they disappear from our timelines.

Just because you’ve grown tired of hearing, doesn’t mean there aren’t still desperate cries to be heard.

Just because you’ve moved on, doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a terrible pain to be moved by.

Praying for you and for me; that as our compassion becomes fatigued, we find a deeper well to draw from, a longer attention span for the needs of others, and a stronger constitution that seeks to live outwardly.

May we all be healed from our issue sickness.

 

 

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