On Emotions over Distant Tragedies

I recently watched a video in which a YouTuber discussed her confusion over what she should feel about the Boston bombings. (Link here.  Warning—it contains foul language.)  Like many of us, despite a lack of connections to Boston and to marathoners, she felt empathy and a bit of survivor’s guilt—mixed with self-reproach for feeling happy when she was ignorant of the tragedy and for not feeling worse when she found out.  She concluded by asking her viewers what they thought people should feel in such times.  

This YouTuber’s thoughts echoed ones I’ve had many times, and she’s motivated me to articulate my own perspective:

In a world in which tragedy strikes multiple times a day with or without our knowledge—whether theft, abuse, disease, rape, murder, bombing, natural disaster, or something else—no benefit comes from draining our energy in grief or anger for each with the same intensity and constancy as if each had personally affected us.

That sounds callous, perhaps; an ideal world would never see tragedies, but if it did, surely everyone would empathize completely and rally to support each victim.  That’s not feasible in reality; there are more tragedies than we can know about or feel for or assist with, and not everyone wants help or wants to live selflessly or wants to respect people’s rights to life, liberty, and happiness.

Even without a storm of emotions and without being in a position to help every victim we hear of, we should always recognize tragedies as such and work to prevent them when we can.  Never should we accept them as normal, acceptable, everyday occurrences… and neither should we remain perpetually upset about the state of the world; it will never be perfect until we have “a new heaven and new earth” (Rev. 21:1-8).

Whether we feel emotions such as anger or grief over a tragedy should be a natural response: if the feelings come, fine (within limits; emotion should be tempered with reason); if they don’t, that’s also fine.  A sense that we should feel depressed or outraged, and an attempt to force or sustain negative feelings instead of seeking healing and perspective—that’s useless and even dangerous.  Emotion alone doesn’t help victims nor make us better people; forced emotion—or excessive and misplaced emotion—actually achieves quite the reverse.  It can trap us in cynicism, bitterness, or debilitating depression, preventing us from functioning in life, from working to improve the lives of those we can affect, from appreciating humanity’s virtues, and from seeing how God is using the tragedy to save and strengthen souls.  

Therefore, instead of useless and excessive fury or grief, tragedies should motivate us toward positive actions.  Prayer should always be our first response.  Next, as we’re led or as our respective situations allow, we might volunteer after a catastrophe or send aid.  Tragedies should also increase our vigilance against similar trouble in our own areas, encourage us to support our neighbors and mentor troubled kids—and to evangelize, given the reminder that this short life is the only time people have to make a decision that will affect their eternal home.  Finally, tragedy should also motivate us to reevaluate and improve our own worldview, priorities, faith, and behaviors.

This leads me to another thought—how informed should we stay about tragedies?  What can knowing about very distant tragedies really do for us but depress us?  Well, national and world news have value since we may know people from the reported area, it gives us specific subjects to pray about, and it informs us in case we feel led to send aid—if only a letter of encouragement.  I’ll note, however, that the media tends to latch onto certain big cases like the marathon bombings and to repeat the same details numerous times for viewers or readers who learn about it late.  By contrast, they barely mention other daily tragedies that viewers are in a better position to alleviate: for instance, it latched onto the Ariel Castro case, but pays little attention to the daily human trafficking all across the U.S.. Thus, I’ve concluded that for myself, it’s good to know the highlights but to not obsess over the news and over matters outside my control; I give them to God in prayer and live where and when I am—and I try not to feel guilty over my inability to play Superwoman.