Why can’t we care for Every Life Lost?

💔 Imagine if we had the capacity to care for all other causes of illness and associated deaths like we do with #covid…

❓Why is it not a travesty that there are 8M+ people on the NHS waiting list for hospital services and procedures?

❓Why are we not incapacitated by the overwhelming loss of life we witness every single week? Some 24K people have lost their lives in the UK since 5th Nov.

❓Why are we not seriously concerned with the 100K+ patients in hospitals across the UK that are in there for other serious issues?

❓What about the 7,650 Cancer deaths? What about 7,820 heart disease deaths? Or 4,060 Dementia deaths? Or the 650 suicide attempts that the ambulance have attended since the 5th?

LET ME TELL YOU WHY.

🛡 We (humans) can’t handle big numbers when it comes to harms of others. It’s a protective mechanism to prevent overwhelm, incapacitation, and to focus on what YOU CAN EFFECT… your life and those of your small tribe (under 50).

💔 We are masters of abstraction and disassociation. The harsh loss of life to one person can move us as a story can be told and a deep emotional connection developed. 

❌ However, we don’t feel 1000x the grief if 1,000 people were reported of dying in exactly the same way on the same day. It’s just not possible.

But, it’s not just that.

🧠 We only have the capacity to care for what we KNOW, with most care delivered to small numbers and those we can put a story/name to.

We cannot care for what we don’t know. This is why the world is not in a permanent state of mourning and insurmountable fear.

💓 So, you apply thought and a semblance of care to those whom you have been told MOST FREQUENTLY & MOST LOUDLY have suffered.

🔄 It’s not enough to read one article and have that own your heart and head for a year with deep sorrow. No. You need constant reminding to care, and constant reminding to behaviour differently to prevent further loss of life.

GET HONEST

We need to get honest with ourselves.

❓If you are not vocal, animated and forced into action for EVERY life and every cause of death, why not?

❓Were those lives not important? Could future deaths not be avoided with action by you, those around you, the individuals concerned, and the Govt?

😬 I’m sorry to say this… 

But if you are animated advocates for COVID-related restrictions and yield judgement on those that don’t match your worldview, yet you do not have the same conviction for all other preventable forms of life loss… then, you are a hypocrite.

🙉 You are not alone. Most people are hypocrites when it comes to their capacity to care equally and genuinely…

That said, it doesn’t make it ok. Far from it. Find a way to offer smaller doses of compassion for all forms of life loss, versus picking the harms that you’ve been told to care about.

All life and all suffering matters.

#GetHonest

______

SOURCES:

Graphs from our COVID+ Insights Dashboard.

We regularly share ONS, DHSC & ONS data. This time, find links to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland weekly death registers in the comment below 👇🏼

• COVID+ INSIGHTS DASHBOARD: https://adapnation.io/covid-insights/
• ENGLAND & WALES WEEKLY DEATHS
• SCOTLAND WEEKLY DEATHS
• NORTHERN IRELAND WEEKLY DEATHS

The Original Facebook Post