Caring
Ingredient #3 - Good Priorities

Here's one more ingredient of caring. This is one many people might not think of:
having good priorities, healthy priorities.

Caring has so much do to with our priorities. One can see what we care about,
what one's priorities are, when one looks at a life.

The more I think about the importance of priorities, the more I want to say this is the most important ingredient of caring. Someone "loves" their children, partner, friends, colleagues - but does not care enough not to get drunk, not to squander money, not to get high, not to gamble like crazy. "But I care, I care so much," the person may say - as colleagues are left with a mess, as people are defrauded, as families are left never knowing when another binge will start.

Maybe especially if the person who cares more about an addiction, etc. (to spending, drinking, raging), has a lot of caring feelings toward those who are left uncared for, the person - and maybe even those around him or her - may believe they're dealing with a caring person. Yes, there are caring feelings, but what good does it do if those feelings are not acted upon, if instead there is not enough care to take care of others - and if instead others are used, lied to, manipulated, defrauded, deceived?

The caring feelings - and maybe good intentions - are probably good mainly for helping the insufficiently caring person view themselves as caring - above the law, a special case, just needing more and others just aren't understanding enough. Deep underneath there is likely to be shame, but outside there may be a very thick skin oozing with self-approval and disdain of others who are not supportive.

I have witnessed, over and again, self-approval, and a callous disregard for others. Others - especially if the person has power - had better be careful, or there is likely to be outrage. (The rage of the "righteous" strikes once more.)

The commandant of Auschwitz considered himself - and was in some respects - a caring person. He was a loving father and husband. But a higher priority than caring was following orders. And so he supervised the murder of millions of Jews.

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Something else comes in with caring and priorities - selective caring, something very widespread. Hundreds of people may be ready to offer a home to an abused animal that's made the front page of the newspaper. Cat Found With Ears Cut Off. When that story ran in the local news, along with photos of the mutilated cat, three hundred people were eager to offer the tortured pet a loving home. Almost no one was willing to adopt any of the other cats at the shelter - so most of those cats died, with no home to go to.

The commandant of Auschwitz was an expert in selective caring, caring about some people - family, friends. He did not care about the Jews.

Of course we also need to be selective in our caring. It's too much, all the need coming at us - all the massacres, famines, rapes, killings of endangered species, totally unnecessary product testing on animals. I am sure I have missed a hundred thousand other things to care for.

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Enough heaviness. Caring - our priorities show what we actually care for. My car - it isn't a priority, except in terms of transportation and keeping it going. So it has new winter tires (safety) and will get a winter oiling (durability). It has new brakes (safety). It doesn't have a very clean interior. We have 2 dogs who enjoy traveling in the car, and leave behind lots of fur. That isn't all. I just don't care - except that it smells okay (and even there I'm kind of sloppy, but don't like it, because I don't like driving a car that smells of dog).

I remember a couple on my street. They had a baby. They were both lawyers. He had a red BMW which he spent hours washing, polishing, grooming. I don't remember him holding his daughter. I don't think he had his priorities right - and I wondered about the inner life of the woman he was with, because she stayed with him. She always looked tight, stressed - nice but quietly tense.

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So caring is about the caring we do. To see if we'd call someone a caring person, we do look at that person through the lens of our sense of the priorities of a caring person.

More Ingredients  click here

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To be continued.

signed,

Dr Zee
October 2006

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2006, 2010 - all rights reserved
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2006, 2010

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YOUR COMMENTS OF THE IMPORTANCE OF HEALTHY PRIORITIES,
YOUR THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES OF CARING,
ESPECIALLY AROUND CORE PRIORITIES

Click here to go to from Healthy Priorities
to everything on Dr Zees Loveline.

Healthy Priorities vs loving father heads concentration camp;
alcoholic gambler claims to love her children.
The LoveLine explores healthy priorities, care priority,
getting core priorities straight.

Selective caring: loving father heads concentration camp;
alcoholic gambler loves her children.
We need for healthy priorities, good priorities.
Caring feelings are not enough.

Dr Zees LoveLine
"In love you could shine like a brilliant star."
Fortune Cookie

DR ZEES LOVELINE on HEALTHY PRIORITIES
getting your priorities straight * priorities straight *
selective caring * healthy priorities * urgent priorities * care priority *
care priorities * core priorities * caring priorities * good priorities * priority checking *
healthy priorities * deciding priorities * priority of life * life and priorities * core priorities *
a sense of priorities * caring priorities *
DR ZEES LOVELINE

Dr Zees LoveLine

DR ZEES LOVELINE
love liking longing aching wanting desiring having holding caring *
healthy priorities * getting your priorities straight * priorities straight *
selective caring * care priority *
core priorities * caring priorities * good priorities *
deciding priorities * priority of life * life and priorities * core priorities *
a sense of priorities * caring priorities *
connections to social issues
like prejudice, fundamentalism, terrorism, genocide, peace *
DR ZEES LOVELINE

***SOCIALIZEIT***

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