Why do I care so much?

It's times like this that I'm reminded of my greatest challenge.  I care too much.  What do I mean by that?  I'm concerned about the Coronavirus.  Not for myself or my family, but for older adults living in nursing homes (and assisted living facilities).  As best I can tell thus far, Covid-19 kills frail older adults.  It seems to bypass kids and doesn't have much effect on most younger and middle age people, so long as the are not immunocompromised.  That puts it in my wheelhouse, the older adult population.  I'm especially concerned about nursing homes.  Why? Because I know too much about how nursing homes function and operate.  Thus, I feel like I have an obligation to do something.  Am I the only person that can do something? Of course not.  On the other hand, with all the challenges in healthcare affecting (and in this case infecting) older adults, we still have huge problems.  While one person won't change everything, and while I can't and shouldn't be taking that responsibility on my shoulders, I can also make a point that change won't happen without people like myself who feel so strongly about advocating for older adults.

With all that said, I should also think about myself.  The emotional, and ultimately physical, investment is not minimal.  Which is why I keep coming back to looking at focusing on the things most near and dear to me, which is educating people about Geriatrics and the needs of older adults. If I focus on the basic things that I can easily do, it doesn't necessarily make sense to distract myself with more pie in the sky types of things.  Caring matters, but it won't do me a lot of good if it buries me.  I certainly find that I'm less productive when I overextend myself.  Paying attention to what makes the most sense to focus on and spend my time doing will allow me to gain the maximum gratification and pleasure from those things, while reducing the added stress of trying to do too many things at once.

When I think about it, I don't want to let go of caring, but I don't have to spread that caring around so much.  It spreads me too thin.  Interesting realization.  My caring will always be there.  It's not going away. It's not more or less than it ever was.  On the other hand, the things that I get involved with related to what I care about are things that I can manage better.  I guess it's ok to care so much!