I've had to stop watching the news over the last couple years. I hate being uninformed, and not knowing about the important things going on in the world - people often look at me with amazement when they realize I haven't heard about a school shooting in some US State, or missed the fact that Rob Ford admitted to smoking crack. But the truth is that my heart just breaks too easily. I've realized that anything truly earth shattering will eventually make its way to me. Most of my Facebook Friends are fairly like-minded to me - and I use them as news filters. They post the huge news items, or the really interesting discoveries for me to read - and I don't have to read about all the other shitty things that have gone on in the world on any given day.
If you know me through work you might think that I have a really thick skin. Depending on the interaction we've had, you may even think I am the kind of person who goes home and kicks kittens for fun. Don't get me wrong, I don't go around blasting my coworkers - but I do expect people to do their jobs properly (or at the very least take ownership of their errors), and I do expect people in other departments to respect my staff and the challenges they face. I will respectfully, but without sugar coating, tell you the truth. This is a skill I have honed at work - and it is one of my strengths as a leader. Anyway, this is not a post about my strengths and weaknesses at work (if it was, I could definitely tell you about a few weaknesses as well). The point is, that people who know me through work, might not understand, or even believe that on the inside I am human goo.
The people who see the real me, or rather the whole me, could tell you that I've been known to disintegrate over a sappy Kleenex commercial - if I had a catch phrase, it would be "I'm not crying - my eyes are just watering." When it comes to human suffering, or even human triumph, I will cry at the drop of a hat. The triumph part is ok - I can live with the fact that I will cry watching contestants make it onto "So You Think You Can Dance" - there is something incredible about getting to see that moment when a person sees their dreams become a very real possibility. What I find more challenging is the other side of that coin - the side where I become inconsolable over injustice, the side that can't fathom a world where Tibetans are tortured for their beliefs, the kind of world where rapists are referred to as "Clumsy Don Juan's" and victims are vilified for wearing short skirts.
I can't count the number of times growing up that my mother had to remind me "It's not your tragedy - stop trying to own it." I have the ability to empathize with almost any situation - I can feel other people's pain. I'm not saying that if you experienced some terrible tragedy, that I know how you feel - but I can certainly imagine how I would feel in that circumstance. My heart breaks for you.
So Monday, as we drove home from the cabin, with CBC on the radio and heard over and over again about the massive human tragedy in that happened in the Philippines this weekend, I cried. I cried a lot. I cried when they talked about the 17 year old living in Canada who hadn't heard from her family. I cried when the little old lady got the news on Facebook that her son and his family were alright. I cried as I listened to the screams of terror recorded for radio play - it reminded me of September 11th, because I was at work that day and we listened to the whole awful thing play out on the radio.
Beyond the tears, I hold these tragedies in my heart. I try not to make them mine, and to understand that I am separate from them - but I always have to temper that with the knowledge that I can't separate myself to the point of apathy. It's a fine line. I try to close out the unecessary heartbreak, by ignoring mainstream news media as much as possible.
So what can I do? I can help the Red Cross put a band aid on it by donating some money - which I will do. I can remind myself how lucky I am to live somewhere that typhoons, and most other natural disasters, don't devastate lives. Whenever I am tempted to complain as the thermostat dips lower and lower this winter I can remind myself of how lucky I am that all I have to contend with is really shitty weather. I know all that is trite, and that it doesn't do a stitch to help the people whose lives have been devastated - but at the very least it shows some respect for the fact that by comparison I have very little to complain about.
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