Have you ever allowed yourself to speculate that people just do not care about each other the way they seemed to in the past?  A brief exposure to most media coverage could easily have you believe we are losing our caring spirit for each other.  The constant media messages seem to shout that significant and substantial change isn't possible because most people are too selfish, too apathetic or too lazy to try to make a difference in their community.  However, I would like for you to consider that, while the indifference is real in many aspects of our developed societies, there may be other causal sources for this apparent malady.

There is one element that is obvious to me which seems to have taken over the majority of those of us who live in “developed” nations.  This is our seduction to the latest “time-saving” digital devices and the apps and games that go with them.  To be fair this does include me. In our fast-paced and extremely busy lives, it is easy to discount the time that it takes to just keep up with all of the emails, texts, Internet searches, invitations to be “friends”  or “linked” with someone, software installation and tutorials to understand all of these things that occupy an increasingly larger and larger portion of our days.

Also, what you choose to habitually expose yourself to each day can play a role in developing our apathy towards others.  There is something called “the barking dog” theory which certainly comes to mind when considering the messages that we willingly expose ourselves to each day. When we are exposed to cautions, warnings, bad news and negative stories of our human condition often enough, then, like a barking dog, we just learn to ignore the meaning behind the message being sent.  This is because when the dog barks often enough, without us personally getting bit, it is easy to just tune out the “barks” after a while.  Examples can be the media, negative family, friends, or fellow workers.   But whatever the source, you still have the power of choice as to how much you are willing to listen to, accept and internalize of the information you are exposed to at any moment.

The constant drumming of advertising, the news, regulatory messages, complex processes that come with a fast-paced modern world and the often mindless entertainment that is all around us can have an anesthetic effect on our psyche that often leads to a feelings of malaise and apathy as one day rapidly blends into the next.

If any of this sounds familiar in your daily experience of life, it could be important to rethink what you are feeling in the apathy department.  Maybe, just maybe, it is not an internal wiring of an apathetic and flawed human character which lacks the ability to care about others.  What if it is the outcome of a series of choices of the way you spend your time and the influences that you have accepted into your life.  What if the outcome of these choices has spun a web of distractions that are keeping you off-balance and focused on what you have chosen to habitually made a part of your life that is putting your native heart-felt connections with others on tilt.

Here’s the bottom line.  You control the dominating thoughts that occupy your mind.  As such you control those thoughts take you on and how you want to spend your days.  If making a difference for others is something you wish to expand and, as a result, begin to substitute connection and caring for apathy in your life, it is within your power to do so from this moment on.  Now THAT would lead to a life for which you could be truly thankful.