When to Give a Damn

 
T.S Eliot was on to something when he scribed “teach us to care and not to care”.
But what exactly did he mean? The onus here is differentiating the damn-worthy from the damned. When is giving a damn justified, and when is it not?
The art of not caring
To not give a damn doesn’t mean to be indifferent or lack belief or passion. It means not cashing in our damns on life’s trivialities (aka concern, aka time and energy). You save these damns for stuff that actually matters; the personal, cultural, social, emotional, physical or financial issues that jeopardise our and others’ wellbeing, beliefs and/or ability to function in and with societies – the issues worth standing up for.
Not giving a damn means going about your day with purpose. It means not getting distracted by the inconsequential. It means being able to appreciate the differences in people, in communities, in life.
Essentially, it means understanding that bad things happen to everyone and sometimes we can’t do anything about it. In those times, where we are powerless to the programme of the universe, it’s best to save our damns for something that we can actually change for the better.
The art of caring Indeed, our damns should be used at times that intrinsically matter. Imagine if you are only allotted a certain amount of damns to use in your lifetime. Suddenly, knowing when (and to who) to allocate those damns becomes a lot clearer.
Is the cashier who won’t accept your coupons worth giving a damn over? Probably not. Is the council’s act of selling off precious local resources worth giving a damn over? Probably.
Of course there are exceptions – we all have bad days now and then where everything seems to drive us crazy – but truthfully, if you find yourself caring about every trivial encounter and occurrence, then chances are you probably don’t have many (if any) deeply rooted beliefs to legitimately give a damn about and fulfil your ‘damn quota’.
Chances are you’ve either lost focus, don’t have a lot going on, or have too much going on, and the coupons aren’t really what you give a damn about. In any case, your life compass is probably due for recalibration.
Take a moment, sit down and ponder what it is you want, and stop taking your frustrations out on the person who may or may not have just been doing their job.
Granted it would be nice to pull a Clarke Gable and say to everyone in every situation, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” But we are human, and we do give a damn. And what we give a damn about essentially defines who we are. So pay close attention to where your damns go.
As the great writer Samuel Johnson said of man’s obligations, “He should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred”.