The inverse square rule or why people far away are not as important as people up close
Over 150,000 people die every day. Many more are injured and many many more are sick. No matter how kind and caring your are you can’t spend time feeling sad for each person.
As people are further away from you, either by physical distance or by degrees of separation or by the way their story has impinged upon your reality, they are less important to you and you have to expend less time and emotion on them.
This may sound cold but there is not enough time in the day for you to say “I’m sorry you died” for each person who dies each day much less for all the sick and starving and injured and poverty struck people in the world.
Does this mean you become hard hearted and uncaring? No. Instead redirect yourself and be more caring to those people around you. There is plenty of unhappiness right at hand. Make an extra effort to be kind. Smile more, let people go ahead of you in line, say something nice, be more accepting.
We’re all in this together and no one gets out alive