“Don’t shoot the messenger.” 

In this case, the messenger is the one bringing about our consequences. A co-worker laughs openly at our mistakes made in the annual report. A loved one criticizes us embarrassingly in front of others. Our laptop is stolen, a neighbor plays his TV loudly while we’re trying to sleep, a visiting child breaks our heirloom teapot.

Getting upset with the co-worker, loved one, thief, neighbor, or child are misdirected actions—born from not understanding or nor remembering the pervasiveness of causality. If we hadn’t laughed at another, criticized unskillfully, stolen or broken someone’s property, made a lot of noise that bothered others in this or past lifetimes, we wouldn’t be experiencing these incidents.

All the above people are just the messengers delivering our karmic retributions. Our getting upset or angry or sad just plants more seeds for the same, and even worse. We need to work with ourselves on learning to accept our karmic consequences.

And not shoot the messenger.

Before attempting to fix the issues around us . . . (Click image for video)

You cannot do everything,

so do what you can. 

Food security, animal agriculture, gender equality, climate change, single-use plastics, chemical pollution, resource depletion. There’s so much to be concerned about if we want to be a responsible member of society! And the list keeps growing in our over-populated, consumer-oriented, technology-driven world. Because everyone apparently wants more, especially those who have the most. It’s overwhelming.

“How much can I do?” we ask ourselves.

We want to throw up our hands and give up even trying.

Resist that urge. It would be great to do everything perfectly (or even imperfectly). But we can’t. So, instead, we need to figure out what we can do. Focus on a social concern, study it, and get to work. Let others choose and work on their own concerns. If we’re not rebounding erratically from one issue to another, we’ll all focus our energy and end up accomplishing a lot more.

And then be able to take on the next one.