I sit here, at this beautiful coffee shop, in Walnut Creek, CA. It’s a bright sunny day, I have a latte and a biscotti next to me, and there is some light jazz playing.

6000 miles away, people who are really no different than me are being bombed by a murderous mob armed with military weapons and intent on wiping them off the earth for really no good reason.

The juxtaposition of these facts is hard to get away from, and breathtaking in its scope and immediacy. It feels urgent. A fact so bold and meaningful feels like it requires some kind of immediate attention. Do something!, it says. Do something now! Learn! Grow! Act!

A long time ago, in a previous lifetime, I was in a long meditation retreat when someone raised their hand and asked the teacher “how can i understand my own suffering, my own depression and anxiety, when I know how lucky and privileged I am?” I understood this question. I had struggled for years to make peace with my sense of guilt about my own anxiety and depression and this response was soothing. It gave me permission to feel what I felt, and I was grateful. My suffering wasn’t any less intense because of my privilege, it said. I didn’t have to wait for every starving child in the world to be fed before I was allowed to be sad. I could explore, acknowledge and inhabit that feeling, which was the first step to moving past it.

The teacher gave a nice round answer at the time: “we all suffer enough to be enlightened; there’s no need to seek out more suffering.” That made sense to me. I nodded my head, sagely. We all suffer enough. There is no “hierarchy of suffering”. Problem solved. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

But now, face to the bald reality of a vicious war of the type I never thought I’d see in my lifetime, a war that affects those close to me - now that pat response rings hollow. Have I, in fact, suffered enough? Is there more I could do? Saying that all our suffering is equal doesn’t feel right in this moment. Our suffering isn’t equal. My sadness, my loneliness, my lack of purpose is a problem I get to have because I am not currently buried under rubble in a drama center’s basement. My worries about my balding hair are a concern I get to indulge because nobody rolled a tank into my neighborhood and pointed the barrel at my window in return for the sin of simply living where I live and not particularly wanting to pretend I lived somewhere else.

Perhaps that teacher’s response was what I needed at that time in my life. Maybe, like many truths about life, there is both wisdom and ignorance in it. What felt right before doesn’t feel right now, and perhaps that’s a moment for growth.

Maybe it’s time to grow up.