In life, in everything you do, you either care or you don't. This may seem like an inconsequential matter but it is not. It is the basis for everything of value in the world. Caring means putting your full effort into everything you do, big or small. It is full force, one hundred percent. There is no caring halfway.
So, what does caring entail? It means investing in a quality outcome as much as possible in everything you do. It means striving lifelong to acquire knowledge and experience in order to frame the idea of the success of that quality in the right and fair terms. It means eternally embracing the higher choice over the shortcut. It means acting with deep sincerity whether or not you are noticed by others or receive acclaim, whether or not you are paid for your efforts. Caring is taking every word, every action seriously whether it brings you love or pain. You care because you are trying to bring the virtue of love to everything you do.
Caring has always been needed, but in our interconnected and global society, it is essential now to avoid disaster. While there are still many destructive forces in the world, we are also living in a time of unprecedented well being which has given many of us the illusion of immortality, conferred upon us an inability to see reality for what it is. We fixate on very superficial issues of narcissistic individualism rather than what might be good for our societies, our environment, our planet. COVID-19 is a direct repercussion of the imbalance of our times, and caring is the only thing which will combat it.
We need to care deeply about every one of our actions, from taking extra precautions to not spread infection, to ensuring those on the front lines of this and every pandemic have the best protective equipment. Even if it agonizes us, we need to care about stilling our restlessness and sitting it out just a little longer to ensure that we are in no way contributing to a greater and lengthier phenomenon. We especially need to care about the specifics of how this pandemic came about, and what problematic habits we can change about ourselves to prevent similar-type events from occurring. It is by each of us caring a little bit more, committing to giving our all in all that we do, that we might rewrite the ever-recurring outcome in our histories.