What To Care About
“The honey badger doesn’t care.” The famous video celebrating the honey badger’s bravery has garnered over 100M views on YouTube. It’s a wonderful video showcasing how the honey badger is unfazed by animals that would normally frighten us: lions, bees, and cobras. Anthropomorphizing the animal, we can can be inspired to overcome our own challenges and fears, which pale in comparison to lions, bees, and cobras. It’s caring about other things.
In a similar vein, what many successful dieting plans will focus on is what to eat rather than what not to eat. Don’t get rid of the cookies, keep them just eat a big salad as well. Eventually, add more good things until you’re not as hungry or have started to enjoy foods that align with your goals. At least that’s the theory.
We can probably use the same when it comes to caring. What are the things that we can care about the most (and the values we aspire) that we focus on them so much that other things seem to fall out? This applies to our work as well as other parts of our lives, it also applies to how we can influence others to help us.
It’s not that the honey badger doesn’t care — it’s that it cares so much about getting food in a harsh environment that other concerns, including ones around self-preservation (this is my opinion and not a zoological explanation). If we add more care to things we care about and double down, it might help us focus and be more satisfied.
For me, it’s aiming to write often on Medium and develop this body of work.
