If you can’t be reached, chances are you have walled yourself off with indifference. When you don’t care, it’s hard to care about you.

If indifference has taken over your life, you are in decline and are in need of an infusion of care that cannot come from out there. They can’t get through; it’s up to you.

Indifference contains unintended consequences. We often become indifferent as a protection mechanism - a way of chasing away fear. But in the process, we also chase away everyone else, leaving no one to care for us.

The remedy is we have to care in order to be cared about.

Pretending we don’t care may get us from here to there in the short term. For example, it’s a great negotiating skill to pretend you don’t want something in order to get someone to lower their price. When you pretend not to care too often in life, it becomes a lonely way of life.

You appear cold and unapproachable when you don’t care, making it hard for anyone to dare.

“I don’t care” is a façade.

We appear like the strange lady with countless cats who draws her drapes and turns out the lights on Halloween. No one approaches her house. No one knows there is someone in there to care about because she, like we, pretend we don’t care.

The way to open up is to stop pretending.

Stop propping up your image of invincibility and let people know you too can feel the pain of hurt. It makes you more human and opens the door to your heart.

There is no guarantee that opening your heart won’t let more hurt in. The guarantee is that you’ll have more to pick and choose from rather than the no options that indifference provides.

As the old saying goes, “Into each life a little rain must fall” but you can’t keep it out by building a wall.

“What am I pretending I don’t care about?” is a great question to ask yourself to start the process. It’s the key to opening up your heart and letting others know you care.

If you want to be cared about, you have to show that you can care. It’s the difference that makes indifference go away.

All the best,

John