We talk a lot about kindness, connection, and “showing up,” but those words are starting to feel like bumper stickers. Too clean, too polished. Like someone’s trying to turn human connection into a marketing campaign. I’m not interested in fluff—I'm more interested in mess, in contradiction, in the quiet work people do when no one’s filming.
Something Real Happens in the Small
I’ve seen more warmth in a shared pot of rice on a neighbor’s porch than in a hundred workshops on “social impact.” I’ve seen people who’ve lost everything offer the last of what they had because someone else needed it more. No hashtags. No campaigns.
Most of the care that keeps people going doesn’t make it to Instagram. It doesn’t ask for attention, and it doesn’t scale.
Small gestures hold more weight than grand strategies. A person remembering your kid’s name matters more than a big donation. A ride to the doctor beats a branded tote bag. Most people don’t need a savior—they need consistency.
I Don’t Want Another Framework, I Want a Phone Call
Someone once told me, “We don’t need more systems, we need more casseroles.” They were right. When someone dies, when someone’s evicted, when someone’s alone with their panic attacks—no one’s reaching for a strategy deck. They’re texting the one friend who won’t freak out when they fall apart.
We’ve been tricked into thinking the solution lives in another TED Talk. I think it lives in showing up when it's inconvenient and staying when it’s boring. Not because it looks good. Just because you said you would.
No degree makes someone better at noticing when someone’s not okay. No job title makes someone more trustworthy when you need someone to show up. You can’t fake care—not the real kind. And you definitely can’t outsource it.
Mutual Aid Doesn’t Ask Permission
I’ve watched people organize food drives from their living rooms without a budget or a plan. Nobody told them to do it. They just saw a gap and filled it. While institutions were holding meetings, folks were packing boxes.
We’ve been trained to think we need degrees or approval to help each other. That kind of thinking slows things down and makes people dependent on approval from the top. If someone’s hungry, you feed them. If someone’s lonely, you sit with them. It doesn’t require permission slips or blueprints.
Most acts of care don’t come with guarantees. They come with trust, repetition, and instinct. People figure it out. People always have. They don’t wait for someone to say yes.
Care Looks Like Repetition, Not Inspiration
Most care looks boring up close. Driving someone to the same clinic every week. Making tea again and again. Asking how someone’s doing even when you know the answer won’t change.
I used to think the hard part was knowing what to do. Turns out the hard part is doing it again tomorrow. And the day after that. No stage lights. No applause.
You keep showing up because you care. Not because you're inspired every day. Not because you're in the mood. Because someone’s counting on you, even if they never say it.
Social Work Didn’t Teach Me This—My Grandmother Did
I didn’t learn care in school. I learned it from my grandmother’s hands. She never wrote a mission statement, but she made sure everyone on the block had soup. She didn’t need a curriculum to know who needed help.
There’s a kind of wisdom that lives in gossip, in porch-sitting, in long phone calls at 11 p.m. That’s where care lives. Not in a rubric.
She never wrote about “equity” or “wellness,” but she had a way of knowing who was falling behind. She didn’t need a white paper to tell her what to do. She just paid attention. And acted.
Everything I Needed to Learn About Care, I Learned at a Bus Stop
You learn a lot by waiting for the same bus every morning. Who talks to whom. Who keeps an extra umbrella. Who notices when someone’s missing.
These aren’t huge gestures. They're tiny things that stack up over time. That’s the kind of stuff no one funds, but it keeps people from falling apart. It builds safety in places no spreadsheet tracks.
No one claps when you share your lunch or walk someone home. That doesn’t make it less meaningful. It just means the scoreboard doesn’t count what matters most.
Care Gets Built in the Cracks
You don’t have to be a hero. You just have to notice. I’ve watched people slide tampons under bathroom stalls, slip twenty bucks into someone’s backpack, leave leftovers on a doorstep with no note.
That’s care. It’s casual. It’s intimate. It’s often anonymous.
Some people don’t want their kindness named. They just want to make sure no one goes hungry. That’s not performative—it’s practiced. That’s a kind of presence that algorithms can’t touch.
Enough With the Branding
I don’t want a t-shirt about kindness. I want you to show up when it’s snowing. I don’t want a Facebook group with a fancy name. I want you to help me move a couch.
We’ve dressed up care in logos and slogans, and now it’s harder to see it when it’s quiet. I don’t need a campaign. I need someone who knows where the extra blankets are.
Marketing isn’t the problem—it’s the substitution. When branding replaces doing, nothing real happens. When you spend more time designing the website than checking in with your neighbor, you’re missing the point.
The People Who Don’t Talk About Care Usually Do It Best
Some of the kindest people I know would never use the word “care.” They’re too busy picking up groceries, checking in on elders, fixing what’s broken. They don’t write think pieces. They just do the work.
We tend to look past them because they’re not loud. But they’re the ones who’ll take your dog in when you’re in the hospital. That kind of care doesn’t win awards, but it saves lives.
Some of them don’t even like people that much—they just believe no one should suffer alone. That’s the version I trust. No performance. Just action.
Burnout Happens When Care Becomes Performance
I’ve seen people get burnt out from trying to make their kindness look good. That’s not care. That’s branding. If you’re exhausted, maybe it’s because the performance takes too much energy.
You don’t need to look like a savior. You just need to be reliable. Care doesn’t have to be creative—it has to be consistent.
Sometimes that means washing dishes at a house you don’t live in. Sometimes that means watching kids when you’re already tired. The real work isn’t glamorous. It’s repetitive. And it matters.
If You Have Five Bucks, You Can Start a Grocery Drop
People wait until they have a budget. Don’t. If you have five bucks, start with that. One bag of rice, one can of beans, and a note can shift someone’s day.
We’ve been trained to wait for scale. Don’t wait. Small works fine. Small is real.
One person fed is one less person hungry. That math still counts. And if you do it long enough, others usually show up too.
No One Cares About Your Canva Poster
You made a flyer. Cool. But did you call that old guy who’s been missing from the bus stop? Did you text your friend who’s been sleeping through meals?
Design doesn’t hold people together. Attention does. You don’t need a Canva template—you need curiosity.
The best work doesn’t require graphic design. It requires memory. You remembered someone’s kid had surgery? That means more than any poster ever will.
We Don’t Need Leaders, We Need Lunches
Too many folks want to lead. Not enough want to sweep floors or wash dishes. The best kind of care happens when no one’s trying to be in charge.
The hierarchy ruins it. Care doesn’t need ranks—it needs more hands.
The people who make sandwiches and clean up afterward—they’re the reason anything works. If you think you're above that, you're not doing care. You're doing ego.
If It’s Not Inconvenient, It’s Probably Not Real
Care doesn’t fit nicely into schedules. You’ll miss appointments. You’ll be late to things. You’ll skip your own plans.
That’s part of it. If it doesn’t get messy, you’re probably not doing it with both feet in.
That doesn’t mean sacrifice all the time. But if it always fits comfortably, it’s probably shallow. Stretching a little matters.
The Best Work Happens Off the Clock
Most of the real care I’ve seen wasn’t done during work hours. It was done in texts sent during panic attacks. It was done in late-night drives and surprise babysitting.
People keep pretending this kind of care can be professionalized. It can’t. It’s not tidy enough.
If the work only happens inside salary hours, it’s probably structured around liability more than love. Care doesn’t care about time cards.
Someone Else’s Survival Isn’t a Case Study
Don’t write think pieces about people’s pain unless you’re helping them pay rent. Don’t turn someone’s bad month into a branding opportunity. Some stories shouldn’t be told publicly.
There’s a kind of theft that happens when we package pain for clicks. If you’re close enough to witness it, you should be close enough to keep it sacred.
Let people have their privacy. Let care be quiet. Let some things stay unnamed.
Trust Doesn’t Live in Grant Reports
I’ve filled out enough grant applications to know they don’t measure what matters. No one’s asking if someone feels safer. They’re asking for data points and impact metrics.
You can fake a metric. You can’t fake trust. That grows over years, through slow, consistent care.
You don’t build that with jargon. You build it by showing up at the same kitchen table over and over again.
You Don’t Need a Degree in Care, You Need Time
People keep asking me what they should “do.” I tell them: make time. That’s the real currency. Not your credentials, not your résumé, not your LinkedIn.
Care requires proximity and patience. That’s it. You don’t learn it in a workshop.
You learn it by noticing who’s missing and checking on them. You learn it by staying late. You learn it by refusing to look away.
If You’re Waiting to Feel Ready, You’re Too Late
Nobody feels ready to show up for someone in crisis. You just do it. Then you figure it out along the way. If you wait for confidence, someone goes without help.
Care isn’t clean. It’s messy and uncertain and real. But it beats the hell out of nothing.
No hashtags, no heroics, no frameworks. Just you, your time, your care. That’s what holds people together. And most of the time, no one even sees it.
