Unless you live in Paris, Sri Lanka, or anywhere near Washington DC, you probably haven't recently experienced a major news headline firsthand. Therefore, it's easy to forget about everything happening in the world, good or bad, that doesn't apply directly to you.
However, that doesn't make it irrelevant to you. It's so easy to get sucked into your own personal issues that you don't pay attention to the world's issues.
About one billion dollars were donated to the Notre Dame cathedral since it caught fire on April 15. Even more surprising is this huge amount was donated only two days after. While this money will help to repair the physical damage done to the cathedral, it can't fix the mental and emotional damage to the people who were devastated by the event.
When a major event occurs, we can often observe the way it has affected people's mental health, which is usually the most overlooked. Some of us can't look past the surprise the event caused that we turn a blind eye to those most impacted by it. Those who lost their loved ones, those who saw a building they loved be burned down to the ground, those whose lives have been changed forever. We are more focused on our own problems that we ignore the aftermath of a major tragedy.
Your own personal issues are not any less relevant, but there are some who try to go about their normal everyday lives with previous terror and trauma endlessly playing through their mind. The same trauma that goes overlooked after a few days of news coverage.
There may not be many ways to help these tragedies, but staying woke will help in more ways than one. Keeping your head out of the clouds and paying attention to the consequences of actions heals more than you think. Expressing sympathy to those who feel like they have lost everything is crucial. Donating money will help, but only short-term.
