The 7th is your day to think about caring, and how you can express it

[Guest guest]

Do you know what I discovered? When I'm not functioning very well, I'm not as

capable of caring. It manifests as a kind of sloppiness -- I get lazy, a little

angry, blameful of other people, thinking that they should do more so that I can

do less.

I hate saying this about myself, but I know that when we own up in public to

what we're doing wrong -- when we talk about our addictions, and ways we're not

coming through for our fellow man -- then we tend to grow up, and stop doing

that wrong. And I want that, so I speak out about my failings -- and this group

is a good place to do that for me. Plus everybody else learns from it, just

like they will if you do it. And you're welcome to. And I hope I'm welcome to

with you.

So anyway, I can tell how functional I am by looking at how much I care, or

don't care. And caring actually comes in levels.

http://www.wayimmune.org/colleague/skill03/caring12.htm

There are higher and lower levels of caring.

http://www.wayimmune.org/00_connect/1_lists/carelist.htm

Because there are levels of caring, it's very easy for you, or me for that

matter, to fool ourselves and think that we care very much about something that

we're actually somewhat apathetic about. Like when I'm in the mid range of

caring, I can look very passionate, while being very negative. Negativity often

passes for caring in people -- like, you don't care about your kids, and then

you tell them what's wrong with them. Or like, you don't care about your kids,

except on report card day, when you scan the card for the low grades. A lot of

people think keeping their dog on a leash is an expression of caring about the

dog. Well, they're protecting their dog, right? I see people who keep their

dogs walking right next to them. A fate worse than death, for a dog.

Though the dog probably wouldn't think so.

Anyway, this is a simple, practical way to know how well you're doing, to assess

your condition. What level of caring are you on? This isn't really a " how

much " question. Like, you can be at a very high level of caring about something

that is only peripherally important to you. Like, to be quite honest, the fate

of the planet is not as important to me as many other things that I interact

with throughout the day. But guess what? When I test through the scale of

caring,

http://www.wayimmune.org/00_connect/1_lists/carelist.htm

my finger opens at the top level. Funny thing: it always does, even if I'm not

particularly functional right at that moment. And I'm always doing everything I

can to create a good fate for our world. Really. Like writing this e-mail is.

And writing the one I wrote yesterday was. And putting the site walk-through on

the completion pages for newbies, which I also did yesterday, was. My whole

life is. And yet, it's possible that even what I'm going to have for lunch will

test, if I ask the right questions, as a lot more important, really of critical

importance, to me.

And, yes, I test the importances. I don't try to decide what's important to me.

The testing tells me the truth. You know, we have a whole Skill about this,

http://www.wayimmune.org/colleague/0lesson/0wha.htm

which took years to put together, and was collaborated on, literally, by

hundreds of people.

Anyway, caring is a level, not an amount. And the things you care about, you

will manifest good outcomes for, even if you do almost nothing -- depending on

your level of caring. The lower your level of caring, the denser you are, and

as you get denser it becomes virtually impossible to affect the universe in any

way other than with your bare hands.

B