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Don't look for the helpers
Feb. 9th, 2025 01:45 amNight shift does weird things to my brain, sometimes. I don't remember what I dreamed about after I went to sleep this morning, but I woke up with the old quote from Mr. Rogers flitting about my brain:
I'm sure I'm not the first person to think about this or to even say it (write it?) out loud. In fact, I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere on the internet. That quote was Mr. Rogers speaking to children, just as his mother had spoken to him when he was a child. Children are the most vulnerable in every community, and the least able to protect themselves, and so the world can often look incredibly scary to them. It's good to provide not only safety, but a sense of safety. "Look! There are always people who will want to help you," is very reassuring when you are a small person with little to no control over your life.
It's important to remember that this was said for the benefit of children. It's not for those of us who are grown up, who are adults in our own right with varying degrees of power and agency. Once we are adults, we have to become the helpers, we have to BE the helpers. We no longer have the luxury of being passive in the face of suffering when we have the option to help.
And this is what I grapple with on a pretty regular basis. What should I be doing? What am I capable of doing? Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing enough?
I have a lot of empathy for Chidi from The Good Place, who was so stressed out by perceived ethical dilemmas that he was paralyzed with indecision and ended up actually causing harm, even though his intentions were good. I spend probably more time than is good for me thinking about doing things rather than actually doing them, and in my case it's because I have way more ideas than I have time and energy, and if I were to try to do it all I'd have to quit my job and also never sleep again, neither of which are particularly practical. ;)
I have been trying to do what I can, pouring a fair bit of effort into my Quaker Meeting, but also doing my best to pull together a local mutual aid group. I've been trying to get involved with local efforts to help the unhoused population, but the shift work makes it really difficult to commit to volunteering. Most organizations want you to commit to a regular weekly schedule, and of course I can't do that, because there are lots of weeks when I have to work at the hours I'd be volunteering. In fact, I haven't found a single organization so far that doesn't want that, which is super frustrating. I understand why: it's so much easier to schedule people when they commit to a regular weekly time slot. However, that means that most volunteering positions are suited to retirees or people who are independently wealthy and don't have to work, or a small percentage of working people who can find evening or weekend volunteering positions.
My anxiety about this falls into the same category as my anxiety about whether I have too much money. As a Christian, I should be embracing a life of simplicity and giving everything else to those in need. And, of course, my silly brain has conniption fits about What It All Means. I suspect this may be a part of the undiagnosed-but-probably-autism, which wants Clear and Concrete Numbers and Specific Parameters, and of course adhering to Christianity is a fraught, swampy mess instead. But yeah, I routinely have qualms about whether I'm living a good life. Like, I have a lot of stuff. A lot a lot, as the kids like to say these days. I live in a nice house. Yes, it's a rental, but it's a nice house. Am I spending an immoral amount of money on myself? Is it moral to have savings when others are unhoused?
Of course, I feel weird even asking these questions, because it sounds even to me like all I'm doing is asking for reassurances. No, Phnee, it's totally fine to have savings, you're still a good person! *pat pat* Which is not really what I want, but it's also kind of what I want. I just want someone to give me an exact number, which of course isn't possible. It's not like you're a good or moral person if you have, say, under $1,000 in your savings, or that you're immoral if you have more than $5,000. There's definitely an argument to be made that you can't be a good or moral person if you're a billionaire, because there's no way to become that rich without exploiting and harming people. I am not a billionaire, which feels like a bare minimum, frankly, and I doubt any billionaires grapple with these thoughts at all.
*lies on the floor*
I don't know where I'm going with this. Mostly that I'm deeply insecure about all my life choices. How do normal people not spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about this stuff?
Anyway, I am going to try to get through the rest of my night shifts without any more existential crises or paradigmatic collapses. Wish me luck!
'When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."'
I'm sure I'm not the first person to think about this or to even say it (write it?) out loud. In fact, I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere on the internet. That quote was Mr. Rogers speaking to children, just as his mother had spoken to him when he was a child. Children are the most vulnerable in every community, and the least able to protect themselves, and so the world can often look incredibly scary to them. It's good to provide not only safety, but a sense of safety. "Look! There are always people who will want to help you," is very reassuring when you are a small person with little to no control over your life.
It's important to remember that this was said for the benefit of children. It's not for those of us who are grown up, who are adults in our own right with varying degrees of power and agency. Once we are adults, we have to become the helpers, we have to BE the helpers. We no longer have the luxury of being passive in the face of suffering when we have the option to help.
And this is what I grapple with on a pretty regular basis. What should I be doing? What am I capable of doing? Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing enough?
I have a lot of empathy for Chidi from The Good Place, who was so stressed out by perceived ethical dilemmas that he was paralyzed with indecision and ended up actually causing harm, even though his intentions were good. I spend probably more time than is good for me thinking about doing things rather than actually doing them, and in my case it's because I have way more ideas than I have time and energy, and if I were to try to do it all I'd have to quit my job and also never sleep again, neither of which are particularly practical. ;)
I have been trying to do what I can, pouring a fair bit of effort into my Quaker Meeting, but also doing my best to pull together a local mutual aid group. I've been trying to get involved with local efforts to help the unhoused population, but the shift work makes it really difficult to commit to volunteering. Most organizations want you to commit to a regular weekly schedule, and of course I can't do that, because there are lots of weeks when I have to work at the hours I'd be volunteering. In fact, I haven't found a single organization so far that doesn't want that, which is super frustrating. I understand why: it's so much easier to schedule people when they commit to a regular weekly time slot. However, that means that most volunteering positions are suited to retirees or people who are independently wealthy and don't have to work, or a small percentage of working people who can find evening or weekend volunteering positions.
My anxiety about this falls into the same category as my anxiety about whether I have too much money. As a Christian, I should be embracing a life of simplicity and giving everything else to those in need. And, of course, my silly brain has conniption fits about What It All Means. I suspect this may be a part of the undiagnosed-but-probably-autism, which wants Clear and Concrete Numbers and Specific Parameters, and of course adhering to Christianity is a fraught, swampy mess instead. But yeah, I routinely have qualms about whether I'm living a good life. Like, I have a lot of stuff. A lot a lot, as the kids like to say these days. I live in a nice house. Yes, it's a rental, but it's a nice house. Am I spending an immoral amount of money on myself? Is it moral to have savings when others are unhoused?
Of course, I feel weird even asking these questions, because it sounds even to me like all I'm doing is asking for reassurances. No, Phnee, it's totally fine to have savings, you're still a good person! *pat pat* Which is not really what I want, but it's also kind of what I want. I just want someone to give me an exact number, which of course isn't possible. It's not like you're a good or moral person if you have, say, under $1,000 in your savings, or that you're immoral if you have more than $5,000. There's definitely an argument to be made that you can't be a good or moral person if you're a billionaire, because there's no way to become that rich without exploiting and harming people. I am not a billionaire, which feels like a bare minimum, frankly, and I doubt any billionaires grapple with these thoughts at all.
*lies on the floor*
I don't know where I'm going with this. Mostly that I'm deeply insecure about all my life choices. How do normal people not spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about this stuff?
Anyway, I am going to try to get through the rest of my night shifts without any more existential crises or paradigmatic collapses. Wish me luck!
