Our Life Together

What Do You Care About?

Americans like to obsess, gab, report, and write about a lot of things. However, many things that consume the thought and print world of our culture often are meaningless to me personally. I can even catch myself getting frustrated that the world cares so much about, well, things I don’t happen to care about!

This got me thinking. Sure, we know there are lots of things in this world to absorb our attention and fill our minds and conversations. But which of these things do we actually, truly, care about? Which of these things do we not only care about intensely, but captivate our hearts and souls?

I sat down and made a list of five things:

Things I Don’t Care About
Things I Halfway Care About
Things I Care About a Lot
Things I Care About the Most
Things I Care Too Much About

I kept it pretty simple. The goal was to gauge what really is important, and then ask myself, am I prioritizing those things? Am I thinking about and doing the things that I truly care about? Or am I getting swept up with the crowd, the media, my own laziness, or something else, and not thinking about where my time, energy, and brainpower is being spent? In other words, when I read over my list of things I care about a lot and the things I care about the most, does it line up with how I’m investing my life?

I think the purpose of the two lower tiers of caring is to be aware. Aware that we don’t have to withdraw from the world when the world cares about stuff we don’t, but that we also don’t have to feel obligated to get wrapped up in the latest thing or hot topic if we really don’t want to.

The last category, the things I care about too much, is one that I did not originally have on my list. But as I was mulling all of this over, I realized… there are things that you can care too much about. Things that have an unhealthy focus in our lives. Things that, yes, can lead to flat out idolatry! That list revealed things I fear or things that hold too much sway over me. It’s healthy to be aware of those things too, and work towards diminishing their sway and influence over our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

What do you care about the most? Or even just a whole lot? Is your list reflective of your life?