The Life-Changing Magic of Selective Caring

Don’t be a care bear

Jessica Wildfire
5 min readFeb 20, 2020

One of my friends dumped the lead singer of a local indie rock band because he cared too much. Sometimes he kept her up half the night, thinking out loud about bad reviews.

He pointed at words. “What do you think he meant by that?”

She’d say, “I don’t know, baby.”

Later that year, his band broke up with him too.

Finding something important and meaningful in your life is perhaps the most productive use of your time and energy.

— Mark Manson

We think caring is a good thing. But then we find out that caring has a point of diminishing return. You can ruin anything by caring too much. Love. Careers. Your health. You name it.

You can get addicted

Caring is a potent drug. You only need a tiny dose to start going after the things you want in life. When those things don’t go according to plan, another shot of caring won’t help.

You can overdose on caring.

Someone strung out on caring isn’t thinking straight. You know what this looks like. We’ve all seen someone obsessed over some part of their…

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