Why you should care
How we make our lives unnecessarily hard for each other.
Do you care? Do you care about the people you deal with every day? Do you care about what you do? Do you care about the objects given to you? You should.
I think we underestimate the importance of caring about how our actions and behaviors affect our surrounding, especially our fellow humans. Let me give you some examples: Have you ever had administration send you from one place to another, just to be sent back — even though both are part of the same institution/company? Have you ever had timely issues, but the necessary intermediate person just didn’t do their job, and there was no way for you to speed things up? I think, we all had experiences like that, the list is endless. And how did it make us feel? Powerless, ignored, not cared for, and disappointed.
In practically every aspect of our lives, we have to deal with the results and actions of people (e.g. a cashier, politician, secretary, police). Whenever we encounter their works and they are lacking care, we usually would like to let them know, and wished they had cared for it in the first place. Accountability for what is being done is one way of empowering the “victims” of bad work. With accountability comes the responsibility of everyone for their actions. But I don’t want to go down that route here too much — this article shall not become a rant on the lack of accountability in our current systems. Instead, I want to focus on preventing the lack of care in the first place!
When someone asks you to explain, let’s say, how to setup a printer, don’t just tell them “hey, plug it in, install some drivers, open the document and let the printer go brrrrrr”. Why not? What’s the issue here? Whoever needed help, just can not understand what to do. The instructions are unclear and incomplete. Effectively, there is no help. Of course, now you can just cross if off your to-do list and the job is done. But you didn’t care. Now, let’s care instead: How much do they understand about printers? Do they know what a driver is? Where to get it from? How to open the document and select to correct printer? What we did here is, we were trying to understand the position of the person in need. We were trying to “pick the person where they stand”.
When your job is to install a window, don’t just rip out a piece of wall, screw the frame in and go home. Left behind are a broken facade, wind blowing through the cracks, some garbage is lying around and maybe there are even scratches in the glass. Yeah, I know, this sounds extreme, but I saw similar things happening and maybe you know some of these stories, too. The lack of care is an insult to those who needed the service (window installation). The job is unfinished and the damage will last for years to come. Other examples like this are terribly fixed holes in streets and, on a more abstract level, quick decisions by politicians/managers who leave the details to the lower administration and the citizens/customers to figure out. So what prevents them from caring? How would it look like? Going back to the example of the window, think about the people living in the house. Are the cracks sealed or do the inhabitants freeze in winter? Can they open the windows? Did you leave the place in the condition you left, or do they have to clean up after you?
It is our responsibility for a better society, that we actually solve the problems and cure the diseases — and not just pass on the problems and treat the symptoms. If we would all strive to understand the life-realities of our fellow humans, I believe, we could, right now, drastically improve our quality of life. The more we see how others live and what challenges they might face, the more we can communicate on the same basis. This is the basis, on which we can start reducing radicalization, hatred and prejudice, especially towards people who have vastly different circumstances than we do. Maybe next time you have to call a call-center, they don’t let you wait for half an hour just to hang up. Maybe next, someone will actually take the phone and time to help you.
