A Reminder To Not Stop Caring This Year

There’s an excitement that surrounds a new year. We yearn for a change and subscribe to this ideology that a new year will help bring forth that change. It’s why gyms are full for the first four weeks, why fad diets spend extra money on marketing, and why we each feel more intrinsically motivated. It’s healthy to look inside and see what we can change to be better.

There’s always a list of things we can leave behind when we start a new year. A dead-end job, a habit you’ve been trying to break, a relationship that isn’t working. There’s a list of things we can do to work on ourselves, too. Work out more, read more, learn more about the vast world that surrounds us. Those are all healthy things to change as we move forward into a new year.

However, it’s unhealthy to change the parts of you that make you, you.

We use this New Year as an excuse to harden the shell around our soft spots. The spots that make us unique, the parts of us that help make the world better, and the parts of us that others love the most. They are our most vulnerable parts, and, unfortunately, they’re the parts that get hurt first.

If you spent 2017 caring for others, and feeling the pain of not always receiving the same respect back, do not use 2018 as an excuse to change that. The world needs people to care just like we need oxygen to breath. Without those who care, the world becomes a more callous, more difficult place to reside.

In 2018, make your resolutions. Stick to them, care about them. Care about yourself, care about what makes you happy. Continue to care and the world will eventually reciprocate. You are enough for this world and you will only be stronger, more successful, and more full of love because of it. In 2018, do not stop caring.