The Deadliest Poison, Pt. 2

Last week, I introduced and reflected on one of my all-time heroes, St. Maximillian Kolbe. He was, and is, the epitome of a warrior for Christ. If you don't know his story, I recommend reading part 1 before going forward. St. Maximillian Kolbe, amidst his own suffering, preached about the problem with indifference. Here are my final thoughts on how we can attack indifference and live an empathetic life:

The Roots of Apathy

Victim Mentality

One of the first things that we lose when we are attentive to the needs of others is the ability to play the victim. Every time you turn on the news today, you will hear somebody blaming another person for their own misfortune. Whenever life isn’t going the way we hoped or expected, the easiest thing to do is look to our left and right in order to find someone responsible for our lack of success. I heard it all the time growing up in Harrisburg, during my time in the military, and even more now in my work for the Church.

Human beings often think that because they cannot control everything, they cannot really control anything. Sadly, we often spend so much time trying to control what we can’t control (viz. other people) that we seldom take time to really determine what is under our sphere of influence. You are the sum total of the choices you have made up to this point in your life. Sure, some people may have had a head start on you in a lot of ways, but you’ve also had a head start on many others as well. Do you focus more on what you don’t have and haven’t been given, or on what you do have and have been given in your life?

I constantly try to remind myself and other people that there are true victims out there in this world. There are people who have no ability to change their situation. These are the people who are victims of sex trafficking, slavery, wrongful imprisonments, and brutal dictatorships. These are child soldiers, people in caste systems, and prisoners of war. We don’t have to dwell on such depressing thoughts all the time in order to be grateful for what we have, but it does help to occasionally call to mind that there are situations much worse than the ones we find ourselves in.

“It could be worse” was a simple motto that often got us through difficult times in the Army. We would brainstorm situations that would actually make our current predicament more miserable. Sure, we might be wet, cold, and hungry, but at least we didn’t have to climb a mountain during this mission. You might have a heavy ruck to carry, but at least you didn’t also have to carry a 17lb machine gun along with it’s ammunition. You may have to go on a five mile run in the rain, but at least you were going to get a great big breakfast afterwards. It could always be worse.

Pessimism

The other side of this lovely coin is that wonderful opposing truth, “it could always be better.” While it is helpful in certain situations to think of how life could be worse in order to muster up the strength to persevere, there are also times where we must reflect on what could improve. More importantly, we should focus on the ways in which we can personally do something to affect positive change in our circumstances and in the lives of other people.

Pessimism runs rampant in our world today. We get so caught up in thinking of how bad things are and how bad things can be that we fail to dream of a better future, let alone start working towards it. A joyful life requires that we “rejoice even in our sufferings” (Romans 5:3). The exercise of imagining how your life could be worse is meant to bring you gratitude for hidden blessings, but it doesn’t end here.  Gratitude should always lead to action through generosity and optimism. This thankfulness should shift our thinking from negative to positive, allowing us to see outside of our current pain and find creative ways to bring even greater joy to those around us. Even though I have a heavy ruck to carry, I’m now grateful that I don’t have to lug the big machine gun around. This should move me to go offer a snack or an encouraging word to the man who is carrying such a burden. When that gratitude ends with me, the process is only half complete. For most people, the process never even begins.

You get to choose the way you think. I’m willing to bet that you know an abundance of negative people. The common misconception is that these people are negative because of some outside forces or because of some determined “personality type” they’ve had since birth. In Man’s Search for Meaning, holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl says that the last of human freedoms is our freedom to choose how we will respond to the things we face in life, the freedom to choose our attitude. Negative people are negative because they choose to be that way. This blinds them from reality and keeps them from seeing the beautiful possibilities that could exist, which leads to apathy. If nothing will get better, why should you even try to change yourself or the world around you?

What attitude will you choose to have today?

Distractions

I know that the devil loves himself some distractions. Our Enemy has worked tirelessly over the past century to get us to be as busy and distracted as he possibly could, and he has done so with great success. Think of how obsessed we are with being busy. Ask anybody you know how they’ve been over the past couple weeks and the answer is almost always “busy, busy, busy.” Every person prides themselves on the level of busy they attempt to maintain. Sure, their “busy” schedule might include hours and hours of Netflix, social media, and time at the bar, but don’t you dare try and add something else into their “jammed packed” schedules.

Busy, in my opinion, often just becomes synonymous with distracted, i.e. operating life with no priorities. The constant noise and entertainment prevents us from having a moment to really evaluate our effectiveness and the true importance, or true pointlessness, of what we are doing. Life is all about your priorities. To be successful in the world’s eyes, just stay really busy, but to be significant, it’s going to take some serious intentionality. Distractions and busyness will keep you from caring about what really needs your attention.

Obsession with self

Toddlers are awesome. Their laughs are always adorable and they can be incredibly entertaining. They have such a pure innocence and trust those who take care of them so deeply. Then again, we don’t call that second year of life the “terrible two’s” for nothing. Small children can be incredibly difficult as they go through this gigantic perspective shift that allows them to see that the world does not revolve around them. There are other people who matter too, so the child can’t always have things his or her way. It’s a painful but important journey. We often evaluate someone’s upbringing by how well their parents helped them make this shift.

For some reason, our society is pushing more and more for this two-year-old mentality to be the norm for adults. We are pushing this idea that one’s self is the only person you should really care about.  Self-love, self-care, and self-acceptance are touted as the greatest virtues of our time. They are elevated above self-stewardship and personal responsibility. The world pushes us to be more obsessed with gaining more “rights” and forgetting our responsibilities. In today’s society, you are told to flee from the consequences of your actions. Whether you become pregnant, have student loans, or choose not to work a job, there are people who say the consequences of those actions should be simply wiped away. Why? Because you should have a “right” to choose, a “right” to not have to be burdened by loans, and a “right” to a ‘living’ wage. You also should have a “right” to force your beliefs on other people, making them conform to new ways of pronoun, bathroom, and locker room rules through a new, deeply flawed approach to biology in general.

People’s feelings have been elevated above the English language, the religious liberties of others, and even the right to life for the most defenseless among us. We are empowering a small, yet very loud, minority to take away basic human rights such as the right to freedom of speech and religion, and even the right to life. This minority moves in the shadows behind the guise of tolerance and acceptance, while they actually fight to develop a society who doesn’t tolerate or accept those who disagree with them.

The purpose of society is to help one another protect our true rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. When we adopt this selfish thinking, we cease considering those rights in regards to others and only seek to protect them for ourselves. “Who cares if more African American babies are killed in the womb than are born in New York city? It hasn’t affected my day to day life, right?”

Self-obsession leads us to focusing on our own problems to the extent that we can no longer see, tend to, or even care about the needs of others. This tunnel vision in our own lives causes us to want to play the victim. Self-obsession leads to indifference.

The Way Out

Our lives require context. Whenever things are taken out of context, confusion ensues. We have to keep in mind that we are playing an eternal game in life. We are striving to live holy lives in this life so that we can worship God for eternity in the next. Never lose sight of the goal. We have to also keep in mind that we have a deep and heavy responsibility to leave this world better than we found it. We can’t do this if we are indifferent toward these duties. This undertaking can easily seem overwhelming, but it just comes back to these basic choices:

1. Choose to play the hero, not the victim

2. Choose to have a positive attitude

3. Choose to rid your life of the people and things that distract you from what is most important

4. Choose to be selfless – give yourself to God and others generously in every way that you can

These things are simple, but not easy. It takes time, perseverance, and accountability from the good people around us to even get close to mastering these things in our short lifetimes. The difficult things in life are often the most rewarding. Choosing to fight this battle, to be a light in the midst of all this darkness, is the best decision you will ever make.

This reflection is a part of Seeking Excellence's EXODUS 90 series, which took place in the months leading up to Easter.

Nathan Crankfield is a convert to the Catholic faith. He is a proud graduate of Bishop McDevitt High School, Mount St. Mary's University, and US Army Ranger School. After serving four years of active duty in the US Army, he joined the staff at Dynamic Catholic as a parish consultant. Find more of his writing by visiting our blog section here