A lot of the people I care about have suffered from depression or other mental health issues. It’s horrible. If I could reach out and grab the pain of my loved ones I would. I wish I could pull that pain forth into the physical world. There’s something tangible about physical interaction, I wish I could really show the people I love how hard I’d fight for them. I wish I could physically destroy all the evil of the world, or at the very least try. But some horror lurks beyond the universe I have access to.

I wish I could do something.

Sometimes the only thing, the best thing, I can do is nothing at all. When someone is ready and willing to end their own life, the only thing I can do is stay with them; offer my presence while they just exist in this state of misery. Maybe if I was a trained therapist I could do more. I just don’t know what else to do. I wish I could do more, actively fight the pain in front of me. But I can’t. All I can do is sit there with them.

I know this isn’t nothing. It was a choice to offer myself, my time, and my love, no matter how useless it seemed to me. Thankfully, I haven’t lost anyone to suicide ideation yet. I hope I never do. Still, it really does feel like I’m doing nothing. I care so deeply. I just want them to be okay. All I can do is say ‘I care’ and sit there.

I wish I could do something tangible. It’s frustrating to have so little ability to enact change. That’s the appeal of a physical fight, I could see and feel my victory or loss. But if my friends end their life, that evil will have been amorphous. I’ll have nowhere concrete to turn.

The world is terrible. There is so much sadness and pain, much of it caused by problems we shouldhave solved long ago. How could the world be so fucked? There are so many things I wish I could fix. I truly understand the tendency to have your attention bounced between every problem worth caring about. Each new horror is a horror as worthy of my care as the last. As soon as I see evil I want to burn it from the world, until I see another evil just as deserving of my fire, and my attention is pulled elsewhere.

Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Climate change has the potential to be catastrophic. At the same time I don’t think I should spend my time fighting it. One day I may meet the people who were ravaged by a world fueled by carbon. I’m not sure what it will feel like to meet someone who’s family, home, life, were ruined by an economy structured to convenience me, but it certainly won’t be a joyous occasion.

There are hundreds, thousands, an absurd amount, of problems that need to be dealt with. I think meeting any of the victims of these problems will be horrible. I’ll wish I could have done something, anything, to have helped this person. But just outside my vision will be thousands and millions of other people suffering just as much. 

Even if I gave every ounce of energy I had to every problem I could see, there would still be problems beyond my field of view. As soon as I see them my failure to have solved this previously invisible issue will be obvious, and I’ll have to spend whatever I have left to fix this newly discovered problem. And still, there will be more problems I’ve yet to see, or have forgotten. I can’t carry the weight of the world, and it’s egotistical and self-aggrandizing to pretend otherwise.

Still, I do wish I couldcarry all that weight. I wish I could do something.

I can do something. I know it’s possible. I’ve felt the joy of small victories. Someone finally seeing a therapist. Anti-depressants. I’ve seen the potential of small triumphs. Kindness or cash or medicine given at the right time; a simple change that alters the course of someone’s life for the better.

I can do something. Every bit better we make the world is an extra moment of peace or beauty for someone to experience. I’m not strong or smart or fast or rich, but I do have some power, some money, some time. With each dollar I spend, each minute I offer, I can make sure to buy as many moments of peace or beauty as possible. If I ever have to lay a loved one to rest, I want to know I did the best I could. If I ever have to face all those ravaged by suffering, I want it to be as few people as possible. If, in the end, I can only reduce that number by 1, then it will be enough. So long as I have done the best that I can, it will have been enough.

This means sometimes I’ll have to do nothing. Maybe there is an ancient ritual that manifests suicidal urges into physical form. I could search the mountains and seabeds of old for this magic, or I could just sit there and do nothing but offer my love. I don’t have enough time, energy, or skill to fix every problem. No ancient magic will let me fight evil made manifest. Sometimes all I can do is offer my care, as meaningless as it might seem.

To the people who will face problems I can’t or won’t fix. I am sorry. No one should ever have gone through what you did. I am sorry that you did, and I know this is essentially nothing, but still, I am sorry. To my friends and loved ones who cut themselves or wished to die, I am sorry. No one should ever have gone through what you did. I am sorry that you did, and I know this is essentially nothing, but still, I am sorry.

I want to honor your suffering and your pain by trying to stop as much of it as I can. Sometimes this means I’ll face a problem and have to do nothing. I don’t want a rising tide to consume the livelihoods of anyone, but I also don’t want disease or poverty to run rampant either. I don’t want the people I care about to cry alone in their rooms, ready to end it all. I need to do the best that I can so one day we might live in a world where no one suffers. So sometimes I will choose to do nothing.