Who Cares!?

A friend of mine has a saying, "Who cares!?" And I have kind of adopted it from her and have found a huge freedom from such a short, simple saying. She used to say it often and for good reason. As I would come to her in an overly emotional fashion for advice because the things that went on inside my head sometimes could be, slightly melodramatic.I would sometimes find myself in a tornado of self-fears, doubts, and made up scenarios I believed to be true. And I would come to her crying about every little thing.

I would be stuck in an hour obsession about what to wear that day, change ten times and finally pick something, only after I hated myself enough. Reanalyze and beat myself up about saying something the "wrong way" or thinking that I sounded stupid. For thinking everyone is staring at me when really it was just this made up and irrational paranoia that I believe to be true. Thinking about every move I made and of course thinking it was always the wrong one. Just a true lack of self-esteem crippled with self-centered fear.

So after a while this "Who cares?" started to creep in a little. And I found myself thinking it when the crazy started to set in. As the mania started shuffling around in my head I would think "Who cares?!" and eventually the crazy would fade.

I mean, who really cares?! In the grand scheme of life. In the vast universe we live in, does it really matter what I wore to a party some evening? Or that I sounded weird to someone? That I went to shake hands when they went to kiss cheeks?
And I'm not alone in this. We all have these irrational fears that we let consume our thoughts and rent space in our heads! For what? In ten years are any of these little things going to affect our lives? Probably not.
As we sit here fretting over how our hair doesn't look good in that photo, some child is starving because his mom can't afford to feed him. Some woman is being beaten by her husband with no chance of getting away from him. Someone is being persecuted for their faith, bullied in school, or considering suicide. Someone is dying, and some family is mourning. Putting into perspective all the things that truly matter, really what do we have to be worried about. Live life and give love to those we encounter, that is the goal.
So, who cares. Live a little. Go out without make up, act a little silly, do something out of your comfort zone.

In the overall picture of life, these little pointless melodramas we create only take us farther from our usefulness to others and our purpose. So the next time you start to worry or stress, just think "who cares?!" And laugh about it. And then, go do something nice for someone else. :)