Compassion Is Destroying Our Lives
Compassion Is Destroying Our Lives
We’re caring ourselves to death.
Growing up, my friend’s aunt had a bunch of goats.
All the cousins would go in the pin to feed the goats. But there was one rule: if a goat bucks you, you must “buck” it back (give it a sturdy shove).
But, my friend couldn’t bear shoving the cute little goats.
As a result, the goats would mob and attack her every time she entered the pin. She couldn’t even feed the goats anymore because of how much she loved them.
That’s exactly what’s going wrong in our culture.
And if we don’t wise up, we will be in serious trouble.
We Need to Give Our Inner Goats a Sturdy Shove
Sorry to say it: We are a culture of complainers.
And, because compassion is our highest value, we nurture the inner complainer in everyone until we are nothing but a mob of ungrateful, shoving goats.
It snuck up on us, really. And I completely understand it. Compassion feels good. Feed the monster when it’s little — no problem. It’s cute, even. One day, though, it becomes an unstoppable force out of nowhere.
Take me, for example. In my early 20s, I had a lot of suicidal thoughts. A lot of my identity was “put-upon victim.” It wasn’t like I wanted to be that way. It was such an entrenched part of who I was; to me, anybody who seemed different was just “burying their feelings.”
The entire culture sanctioned my behavior. They sent me to therapy, they gave me time off, they listened, they understood. All that we really going on was a little goat in me needed someone to shove it, and no one was tough enough to do it. So, it became a bully. And I became depressed.
A few years later, I’m happy to report that things got better for me.
And it wasn’t because of all the people who gave me “space” to “vent.” While that felt good in the short term, it just made my inner goat more and more of a bully.
Surprisingly enough, what eventually made me better was people going, “get your shit together, you loser.”
We’re killing ourselves with our obsession with “self-care.”
Our Inner Goat Craves Structure
My brother (who is a director at a theatre now) used to force all our cousins to put on plays at Granny’s house.
We would perform “rehearsal” for my Granny. “That’s so good!” she would fawn, clapping. “Oh my God, y’all are so adorable!”
We didn’t buy it.
“Get Paw Paw to come watch!” we demanded. Granny would roll her eyes and walk out the back door. Paw Paw was on his little lawn mower. He would take the cigar out of his mouth while he listened to her, then walk back while holding her hand, and come into the house. “Someone wants me to see a play?”
We would do the play for him.
After we finished, Paw Paw would pause, then say, “4 out of 10. You forgot half your lines…” and on and on about everything we did wrong.
He would take his time explaining in great detail, for each of us individually, how we could do better.
We loved it.
No one wants to be told they’re “good enough the way they are.” First of all, no. We could be so much more. It felt really good that Paw Paw believed in our potential, not just what we already were.
If used correctly, the truth is a much higher form of compassion.
Allowing the Goat to Be a Bully Hurts the Goat
Compassion can’t be your highest value. It just can’t. Sorry.
If you sacrifice compassion for truth, you lie to protect people’s feelings. That makes you more likable in the short term, but it’s a disaster in the long term. For your social life, because you become nothing but a pent-up ball of resentment (you’ll take it out on someone, trust me). For the culture, lying being the norm is exactly how empires fall. And for you, because lying to yourself makes you not trust yourself. That causes anxiety and depression.
The goat inside you wants you to give it a shove. Otherwise, there are no boundaries. Without boundaries, nothing is protecting us from chaos.
That’s what kids are doing when they’re being annoying — they’re saying, “can you protect me from chaos?” And when we give up and offer a treat in exchange for their silence, we betray them. They are satisfied for the moment, but they know we are weak. It’s not good. For anyone.
It takes a little bit of cold toughness, but we need it more than ever. We need to let our inner goats know who the hell is in charge.
It’s not for us. It’s for them.
We’re Scaring Away All The Tough People
Every time someone gets “canceled” for saying the wrong thing, we’re contributing to a world of all goats and nobody to guide them.
Yes, sometimes tough-minded people say insensitive things. Everyone makes mistakes. But, to think, we have to be able to say the wrong thing. That’s how thinking works. If you can’t say the wrong thing, then the thought just goes underground. There, it becomes a caricature of itself.
What’s worse, we’re scaring away all the people who might’ve told someone like me, “Buck up, kid. You’ve got potential, but you’re acting like a p****.” They could lose their jobs, or worse. That’s a disaster.
We need tough people just as much as we need compassionate people.
If we don’t toughen up, the diseases of despair will get worse. It’s not theoretical — we’re dying. And compassion is killing us.
Safe Spaces Are Bullshit
The worst thing you could do for someone with anxiety is create a “safe space.”
Every psychologist on the planet (pretty much) agrees that exposure is the only cure for overwhelming fear.
And, a whole different part of your brain turns on when you face a fear voluntarily vs. involuntarily. So, if you feel like it’s hopeless, don’t give up yet. If you face your fears, you will discover that you’re way bigger than you thought.
So, stop rewarding yourself for avoiding your fears by doing “self-care” in a “safe space.” It’s horseshit. Go do something hard that scares you. You’ll feel a hell of a lot better.
How to Toughen the Hell Up
As “tough-guy” philosopher Nietzsche once said,
“The strength of a person’s spirit would then be measured by how much ‘truth’ he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.”
If you’re a sensitive soul, learning to be 1% tougher would improve your life so much you wouldn’t believe it.
Here are some actionable things to take home:
Get in cold water.
Listen to ideas that make you anxious (download that podcast with that guy who says things you don’t like — you know the one).
Do something physically hard, like walking up a mountain.
Stop complaining for a week.
There you go.
Buck up, friend. You’ve got potential, but you’re wasting it. It’s time to wake the hell up.
You don’t do hard things because your life sucks — your life sucks because you don’t do hard things.