I keep forgetting that I can’t save those who don’t want to be saved

There are times when the most liberating thing you can do is to give up.

I keep deceiving myself. I tell myself that I’m finished trying to “save” others. I know it’s a waste of time and emotional energy to keep trying to save people who don’t want to be saved. People who don’t believe they need to be saved.

It’s ridiculous. It’s even arrogant of me. And it’s exhausting.

But I keep slipping back into the habit anyway, and I feel like a fool. I find that I’m not saving anyone — and I’m destroying myself by giving myself false hope that change might be coming. The truth is that change isn’t coming. Nobody is going to listen. And I need to save myself — instead of trying to become a hero by saving someone else.

When I look at reality, I see so much which is going to hurt people — some who I’ve loved, some who I’ll never know — and I want to scream in frustration that what I see isn’t obvious to those others. I was once naive enough to believe that if I just explained carefully why people were putting themselves at risk, they would eagerly make changes in their own lives.

What I find is that many people will admit — in the abstract — that they badly need change, but then they’re unwilling to do anything about it once they realize there’s a price to be paid.

I find that people want change — in their world and in their own lives — but they stick with what they already have when they realize that change might be temporarily painful. They overvalue what little they have. They fail to understand that what they could have could be so much more.

They seem blind.

The Christian gospel of Matthew tells the story of a wealthy young man who came to Jesus and asked him how to have eternal life. Jesus first told the man some simple religious things and the man said he had already done those things.

Then Jesus told the man to go sell all that he had and give the money to the poor. When the young man heard this, he went away — and the story tells us he was sad, because he had a lot of money. He wanted to follow Jesus. He wanted eternal life. But he loved his money and security more than he wanted a better life.

Everybody wants something to change in his or her life, but few want to pay the price for what they want. The price is different for each person, but almost all of us make the mistake of believing that we can somehow find a way to have what we want without giving up anything in return.

We believe we can somehow have everything we need without making the obvious changes we need to make. And I’m tired of feeling hurt and frustrated over the pain I see coming for people who aren’t willing to change.

I’m not sure how much I care to warn anybody anymore, because I increasingly feel like a useless fool who’s wasting his time and talking to a wall.

Nobody is going to listen. Nobody is going to change.

I’ve been going through a shift that I didn’t see coming. I’m losing the desire to warn others about what’s going to happen, in the broader world or in their own lives. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a waste of time, so I’m not sure what my point is in speaking.

It might be time to close another door. I’m speaking into a void and few even hear what I say. Those who do hear don’t want to change.

The few who already know they need change don’t need me to tell them what they know. And those who don’t know they need change are going to go right on living their lives exactly as they are.

I’ve realized much of this before. I started out in life wanting to save the world. I really did. Then I wanted to save smaller and smaller portions of the world. I constantly reduced the footprint of what I thought I might be able to do. Now, I realize that I can’t save even one person. I’m wasting my time and my emotional energy. I need to save myself instead.

The irony here is that I need to make a change — a change I’ve known I need to make — but I haven’t wanted to give up on my fantasy of being a hero. Saving a life. Saving the world.

So this is me talking to myself. I can’t save you. I can’t save the world. I just need to save myself — before it’s too late.