You Should Care about Other People

Empathy is one of the most important qualities we try to instill into people from a very young age. Lessons like the golden rule and walking a mile in other people’s shoes are supposed to teach children to treat everyone with respect and try to understand what someone is going through. As I’ve gotten older, and continue to get older, I notice more and more that a shocking number of people either forget what they learned years ago, or never bothered to learn the lessons in the first place. 

I think two of the most important topics when it comes to this also happen to be two of the most divisive: healthcare and black lives matter. 

Call me radical, but I am a believer in Medicare for All. I know there is a lot of skepticism around the idea, and some of it is warranted. I just don’t agree with people having to go into debt simply because they need to heal a broken bone or undergo life-saving surgery. Regardless of where someone comes from, or what they have done in their life prior to entering the hospital, I believe, as a human being, they are entitled to the medicine or healthcare they need to survive. One of the founding documents of America, the Declaration of Independence, lists “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as inalienable rights for every human, and I don’t believe that the most crucial of those rights, life, should have a price tag.  

I don’t want to talk about the Black Lives Matter organization. Instead, I would like to talk about the basic sentiment that black lives matter. I understand some of the criticism against black lives matter. I don’t agree with the criticism, but I understand (that’s kinda my whole point). I think the biggest points brought against BLM comes from ignorance—either intentional or not. Obviously, not everyone is going to be able to relate to what black people experience in their everyday lives. However, another rule people should have learned at a young age is that your personal experiences are not universal ones. In the information age, not knowing about a situation is no excuse. With the ability to read up on anything, ignorance is expected, but indefensible. 

It’s impossible to live on the Earth by yourself. As an introvert, I understand how exciting it is to think about having the world to yourself, but you cannot live without interacting and relying on other people. There are 328 million people living in the United States of America, and every one of them has their own stories, just like you. I’m not sure what I can tell you that you haven’t heard since you were 10. There is no other way to say it, you should just care about other people.