When Care Isn’t Care: Reflections on Comfort, Privilege, and What We’ve Forgotten About Being Human

Through years of quiet conversation, time spent in wild and community spaces, and a growing attentiveness to what’s stirring beneath the surface, I’ve come to a difficult but important realization: what we often call “care” in our culture isn't actually care at all. It’s something else. Something more polished, more performative. And, if I’m honest, something more about comfort than connection.

I don’t come to this realization as a cynic. I come to it as someone who’s genuinely curious about how we might begin to live differently. I've been listening—to people, to the land, to what’s left unsaid in rooms where change is discussed but rarely embodied. And what I keep noticing is this: we’ve built a culture that talks about care, often beautifully, but doesn't actually know how to practice it in ways that are sustainable, reciprocal, or rooted in shared humanity.

The Seduction of Comfort

Comfort is a powerful influence. For those of us who’ve been granted safety, stability, or status—intentionally or by accident of birth—comfort can quietly become the filter through which we experience the world. We start to think that being kind is enough, that speaking out occasionally is sufficient, that empathy is the same as engagement.

But the deeper I look, the more I wonder: What if comfort is part of the problem? What if our attachment to comfort is actually keeping us from doing the real work of care?

Because true care, as I’ve come to understand it, isn't about protecting our feelings—it’s about expanding our capacity. It asks something of us. It stretches us toward one another, even when it's messy, uncomfortable, or inconvenient. Especially then.

Listening Between the Lines

In my work and personal practice, I spend a lot of time listening—not just to people’s words, but to what their nervous systems are saying. To what’s happening in the room. To what’s been conditioned in us about who deserves care, and who doesn’t.

And I keep hearing echoes of a deeper disconnection: between intention and impact, between image and integrity, between comfort and courage.

So many of us want to do good. We want to help. We want to matter. But I think we’ve mistaken performance for presence. We’ve adopted the aesthetics of compassion while sidestepping the more profound truths: that we are living inside systems designed to exhaust, exclude, and extract. We cannot “care” our way out of oppression if we’re not willing to examine the roots.

The Upstream Questions

What would it mean to ask different questions?

• Not just “How can I help?” but “What is mine to shift?”
• Not just “How can I show care?” but “What conditions have made true care so rare?”
• Not just “How do I feel about this?” but “Who has been carrying this burden in silence, and for how long?”

These upstream questions don’t offer quick fixes. But they begin to expose the real terrain: the stories, policies, and patterns that keep us separate, even while we perform togetherness.

They also require something that can’t be bought or branded—Presence. Attention. Discomfort. And the willingness to stay in relationship even when there’s no tidy resolution.

What I’m Learning

I’m learning that care, in its truest form, is slow. It’s rarely visible. It doesn’t always feel good. But it builds trust. It creates the conditions for others to feel safe enough to be honest. And it slowly remakes the ground we stand on—within organizations, communities, families, even within ourselves.

I’m also learning that real care demands we shed the illusion of being the “good one.” It invites us to witness our own complicity in the systems we say we want to change. Not to wallow in guilt, but to become more trustworthy partners in the work of repair.

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From Insight to Embodiment: Practicing Real Care

We’ve explored what true care isn't, and some of the systemic obstacles. Now, let’s consider how we might begin to embody it in our daily lives and relationships. This isn't a checklist for perfection, but a compass for reorientation:

• Cultivate Radical Presence: This is the foundation. Put away distractions, quiet your internal monologue, and genuinely be with the person or situation in front of you. Listen not just for words, but for emotions, unspoken needs, and systemic echoes.

• Practice: When someone is speaking, resist the urge to formulate your reply. Focus on understanding their full message. In a group setting, observe who is speaking, who is silent, and what the emotional atmosphere feels like.

• Ask the Upstream Questions (and Sit with the Discomfort): Before offering solutions or expressions of sympathy, dig deeper.

• Practice: If someone expresses a struggle, ask: "What are the underlying factors contributing to this?" or "What historical or systemic forces might be at play here?" If it's a personal struggle, ask: "What support systems might be missing?" or "What assumptions am I making about this situation?" Don't rush to fix; instead, sit with the uncomfortable truth of complexity and injustice.

• Identify Your “Mine to Shift”: True care begins with self-awareness. What are your blind spots? Where do your privileges or comforts allow you to disengage? What narratives have you internalized about who deserves care?

• Practice: Reflect on a situation where you felt helpless to offer "care." Instead of focusing on what you couldn’t do, ask: "Where might my own internal biases, lack of knowledge, or attachment to comfort have limited my capacity to respond effectively?" Identify one small, actionable shift you can make in your own understanding or behavior.

• Embrace Reciprocity and Shared Vulnerability: True care isn't a one-way street of the "helper" and the "helped." It's about mutual exchange and recognizing our interconnectedness. Be willing to be impacted, to learn, and to reveal your own humanity.

• Practice: Instead of always being the one offering support, consider when and how you can accept it. Share a relevant vulnerability or struggle (appropriately) to foster deeper connection. Recognize that listening deeply is a form of care that can be offered by anyone.

• Prioritize Sustainable Action Over Performative Gestures: Real care is often quiet, consistent, and less visible. It might involve consistent advocacy, showing up repeatedly, or contributing to long-term systemic change rather than grand, one-off acts.

• Practice: Instead of attending every protest or signing every petition (though these have their place), identify one or two areas where you can commit to sustained effort. This might be joining a local community group, regularly donating to an organization working for systemic change, or consistently challenging problematic narratives in your own circles.

• Practice Discomfort as a Muscle: True care will inevitably lead you to uncomfortable truths and situations. Lean into this discomfort as a sign of growth, not something to be avoided.

• Practice: When a conversation feels difficult, or you're confronted with information that challenges your worldview, resist the urge to shut down or deflect. Stay present. Allow yourself to feel the discomfort, knowing that on the other side is deeper understanding and expanded capacity.

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Where True Care Begins

We’re not as far from one another as we think. But bridging that distance will take more than sentiment. It will require practice, presence. And the courage to be changed.

That, to me, is where care begins. Not in comfort. But in relationship. And in the quiet, unglamorous work of making space—for truth, for trust, for something more real than what we’ve been sold.