I cannot watch the news without it getting to me.
Some weeks it is a disaster on the other side of the world and some weeks it is closer than that. It does not seem to matter which. It gets in.
Some people can scroll past, but I never learned how. I used to think that made me soft. Now I think it just means I am paying attention.
It is out there. But it is also right here.
Someone in my family is carrying something they have not named. A friend is quietly underwater. A colleague is sitting in a meeting doing math on a diagnosis, a marriage, a kid who is struggling.
The suffering on the news has a camera on it. The suffering in my own world does not.
It can overwhelm me for sure. But it does not make me powerless.
Some of it costs me nothing: A second question after someone says they're fine. Saying the thing out loud instead of assuming they know. Giving someone credit in a room they are not standing in. Answering the text that has been sitting there four days.
Some of it costs me something: Money. Time. Showing up when it is inconvenient. Using whatever influence I have for someone who has none.
Here is the pattern I have noticed: I skip the free one, then feel guilty about the expensive one. I tell myself I cannot help because I cannot write the check.
The check is not the only currency.
Nobody is asking me to carry all of it. I just need to help carry my circle. If I take care of mine and you take care of yours, the circles start touching. Then overlapping. Then nobody is standing outside one.
That is not a strategy. It is arithmetic.
I am not good at this yet. I get busy, or scared, and stop asking the second question.
The person who needs me most this week is probably not on the news.
They are in my phone.