What does it mean to care?

Is it a feeling? On some level, sure. But that’s just a starting point.

A thought? It probably involves thinking too, but we shouldn’t stop there.

Action? Yes, absolutely. Action may be the most central ingredient. But there is more to it, especially with the highest forms of caring.

Dedication and time? Yes and yes.

A kind of formula is beginning to emerge. And as we travel down it, we run into deeper and deeper levels of care.

What we care most about tends to involve a sustained combination of feeling, thought, action, and dedication over the course of time.

Insofar that this is a generally accurate way of conceptualizing and scaling “care,” it can help us assess what we care about most in life. The question is this: what are the things you actually direct feeling, thought, action, dedication, and time towards?

I’m painfully aware of the defensiveness questions like this can evoke. Some people may sense an inner disconnect and take a quick U-turn right out of this topic. There’s a reason people say “ignorance is bliss.” Others may engage in mental gymnastics, bending and folding logic so that their way of life appears to be in alignment with what they claim to care about.

Exploring what really matters to us is an uncomfortable subject, and it can take courage to address it honestly, especially if there is dissonance between what we say we care about and where our energy actually goes.

So again, what do you truly care about? At least be real with yourself.

Let’s make things a bit more complicated. Maybe you have strong feelings about a cause, relationship, or a creative project and have spent countless hours thinking about it, yet something is holding you back from action. What is that something? What would, if anything, constitute a valid excuse?

On the flip side, what are you acting towards that your heart and mind are misaligned with? You may think of this as “going through the motions.” But sometimes, there are good reasons to go through the motions. What would those reasons be?

Clearly, I have more questions than answers, but that’s kind of my intent.

My hypothesis is that many people haven’t intentionally defined what’s important to them or seriously investigated what it means to care. After all, a lot of us live on autopilot, even while frequently noticing that something seems off. “Eh, but it’s really not that deep. Put your head down and get back to it,” one might think. Meanwhile, it could be whatever you’re getting back to that lies at the root of the problem.

Studying this sense of offness can help us break free of acting like we care when we don’t— or even better, it can challenge us to move into deeper levels of care so that we can live in alignment with our values.

Feeling. Thought. Action. Dedication. Time. It means a lot to care. Are you up to it?