What happened to my coat?
My coat wasn’t on the rack where I’d left it that morning.
I was terrified the entire bus ride home.
Even though I was raised in a conservative Christian home, I was far more afraid of facing my mother than I was of facing God.
Someone had taken my coat from the classroom coat rack, and I knew I was about to walk through the front door without it. I stepped into the house already crying.
“Mom, someone took my coat at school today.”
Without asking a single question, she replied, “Well, if they needed it worse than you did, that’s okay. They can have it.”
Instant relief. No lecture. No punishment. No spanking.
After my heart stopped racing, her words stayed with me.
If they needed it worse than you did, they can have it.
Neither of us knew why the coat was gone. Maybe someone needed it. Maybe they didn’t.
My mother more concerned about how we chose to respond to this than why my coat was missing.
Growing up, I often heard her say, “No matter how bad you think you have it, someone else has it worse.”
As a child, I didn’t always appreciate hearing that. Especially when I couldn’t get the toy I wanted or thought life was being particularly unfair.
I realize those simple lessons shaped much of what I believe about generosity, compassion, and serving others.
They also left me with a question that sounds simple but gets more uncomfortable the longer I think about it.
How much do I really care about other people?
Most of us would like to believe we care.
We help friends. We support family members.
We volunteer, donate, encourage, and lend a hand when someone needs it.
But caring is relatively easy when it costs us very little.
What happens when helping becomes inconvenient? When there’s no reward, no appreciation, and nothing to gain in return?
If serving people stopped benefiting you, would you still do it?
The answer to that question has a lot to do with why we care in the first place.
I’ve discovered that my own motivations aren’t always as pure as I’d like to believe.
1. Transactional Care
“I care about you because you benefit me.”
This is probably the most common form of caring.
Customers appreciate businesses that serve them well. Employees appreciate bosses who promote and support them. Friends value friends who encourage them, help them, and make life more enjoyable.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.
Most healthy relationships involve some degree of give and take. We give. We receive. We help. We are helped.
But transactional care can come with an unwritten agreement:
I’ll take care of you as long as you take care of me.
I was reminded of this while working on this essay at a local restaurant.
I struck up a conversation with a guy named Clay at the bar. We discovered that we’d grown up about 100 miles from each other.
He’d spent some time in Oregon and had only been in town for about a week.
He had also been working at this restaurant since arriving.
At some point, the conversation turned to his manager, Larry. Clay told me Larry had been very good to him. He said:
“Larry told me, ‘If I take care of him, he’ll take care of me.’”
I almost laughed.
Transactional care.
And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that arrangement. Clay works hard for Larry. Larry looks out for Clay. Both benefit.
That’s how a lot of workplaces, friendships, and even family relationships function.
But their arrangement made me wonder about something bigger.
When the give-and-take stops, does the caring stop, too?
I don’t know Larry well enough to answer that question about him. The point is that it’s easy to care about people when the relationship is mutually beneficial.
But what happens when someone can no longer offer us what they once did? When they need more than they can give?
Sometimes what I think is caring about someone is really caring about what they bring to my life.
And that’s where transactional care reaches its limit.
The test comes when the relationship stops benefiting us.
2. Reputational Care
“I care because I want to be seen as a caring person.”
This form of caring is much harder to detect because it often hides behind genuinely good actions.
Steve Carell was honoring his Crazy, Stupid, Love costar Ryan Gosling, who was receiving the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
While working together, Carell asked Gosling about his weekend plans. Gosling casually mentioned that his band was playing at a senior center in Glendale, simply to entertain the residents.
Carell joked that most movie stars would have turned that story into publicity, perhaps sharing it on a talk show or watching it go viral.
But Gosling hadn’t told anyone.
Carell pointed out that the only reason people knew about many of Gosling’s good deeds was that someone else had witnessed him doing them.
That story made me think about something.
Would I still do something good if nobody ever knew I did it?
Most of us like being appreciated. We like being thought of as generous, compassionate, and helpful.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
This becomes a problem when recognition becomes the reason we serve.
There are times when I genuinely want to help someone while also hoping someone notices. Sometimes those two motivations compete for my attention, and I’m not always sure which one is winning.
But what if nobody notices? What if there’s no thank-you, no recognition, and no one around to see what I’ve done?
Would I still be just as willing to help?
Am I serving the person, or am I serving my reputation?
3. Emotional Care
“I care because caring feels good.”
There is something deeply satisfying about helping another person. We see someone struggling, we lend a hand, and it feels good to know that we helped.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. I hope caring about other people does make us feel good.
But our emotions can be unreliable.
A relative once told me that her husband was one of the kindest and most generous people she knew. But there was one particular person in his life who was very needy and, frankly, difficult to like.
She could always tell when that person called just by the way her husband reacted and spoke on the phone.
He didn’t enjoy dealing with him.
And that’s where caring gets complicated.
It’s easy to be compassionate toward people we like. It’s easy to help people who are grateful, pleasant, and appreciative.
But what about the person who irritates us? The person who wears us out? The person whose name appears on our phone and makes us think, Oh no. What now?
That person may need our compassion just as much as everyone else.
Yet, caring about someone doesn’t mean I have to meet every need they have. Sometimes caring requires setting boundaries, and sometimes the wisest thing I can do is say no.
The challenge is knowing the difference between setting a healthy boundary and simply not wanting to deal with someone because they’re difficult.
My willingness to help can depend a lot on how I feel about the person asking.
And that leaves me with another uncomfortable question:
Am I caring for this person because they matter, or only because caring for them makes me feel good?
4. Servant Care
“I care because you have value.”
This is the kind of caring that remains when the other rewards begin to disappear.
It doesn’t require the other person to benefit us. It doesn’t depend on recognition. And it doesn’t disappear simply because caring becomes difficult.
Few stories illustrate this better than that of Robertson McQuilkin and his wife, Muriel.
Robertson was president of Columbia International University when Muriel developed early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. As her condition progressed, she increasingly needed his care.
Eventually, he made an extraordinary decision: He resigned from the presidency to devote himself to caring for his wife.
This wasn’t a temporary sacrifice. He cared for Muriel over a period that ultimately spanned 13 years.
As the disease took more and more from Muriel, caring for her required more and more from Robertson.
And he stayed.
What makes his decision even more powerful is that Robertson didn’t describe caring for Muriel as an obligation he reluctantly accepted.
She had cared for him sacrificially for decades, and now, when she needed him most, he believed it was his turn to care for her.
He had made a promise to her. And as Alzheimer’s gradually took away more of what she could contribute to their relationship, it never took away her value to him.
That’s the difference.
Servant care doesn’t ask, “What can you do for me?”
It doesn’t ask, “Who will notice what I’m doing?”
And it doesn’t depend on, “Does caring for you make me feel good?”
Servant care looks different for everyone. Not everyone can leave a career to care for someone they love. But the commitment behind that care remains the same.
“You matter. And because you matter, I will care.”
How Much Do You Care About People?
I started with a missing coat.
My mother had no idea who took it or why. She didn’t know whether that person genuinely needed it.
Her response was simply:
“If they needed it worse than you did, that’s okay. They can have it.”
I didn’t understand it at the time, but she was teaching me something about what it means to care about people.
The person who took my coat couldn’t benefit her. No one was going to applaud her response. And I’m pretty sure buying me another coat didn’t make her feel particularly good.
None of that changed the way she chose to see the person who might have taken it.
And maybe that brings all of this down to one disgustingly simple question:
Do I care about this person simply because this person matters?
I wish I could say I always get that right. I don’t.
Sometimes I want something in return. Sometimes I want to be appreciated. Sometimes I’m much more compassionate toward people I like than people who get on my nerves.
Maybe that’s true for you, too.
But perhaps the goal isn’t to pretend our motives are always pure. Maybe it’s to recognize them and keep moving toward something better.
Mom was right all those years ago.
Sometimes you just let them have the coat.