Most of us care about at least a few things quite deeply. We may come to believe that our caring will be sufficient to gain the outcome we desire. We may tell others, “I really care about ____________. Our caring matters only when it causes us to take action.

Sometimes we express our caring in the words of a prayer. Prayer can provide a moment of focus for the person offering the prayer; that is a good thing. However, unless prayer leads us to take personal action nothing is going to change. We can and should pray for a friend who is battling cancer. Next, we should take action by helping them with tasks that may be burdensome to them; mow their lawn, shop for groceries and bake cookies.

If caring is to stand any chance of success, the issue cared about needs to be something we can change. For example, if we truly care that smoking is hurting our health we can do what we must to break the habit.

It is easy to care about things that we cannot change. It is also a waste of time. For example, we can care about improving the marriage of our next door neighbors. However, unless the couple cares to work on the marriage, nothing is going to change.

We should never stop caring. Imagine a society where nobody cared about anything. Yet, caring without taking some action has no chance of changing anything. Telling others how much we care does little to demonstrate our conviction. Our actions speak louder than our words.

Why did I write this? Like much of what I write, this is publically stated to remind myself of what I need to do to make a difference in my life. I will leave it to Dear Abby to give advice to others.