A Fence is Not a Prison
The Wisdom of a Reasonable Sphere of Concern
We are living in a moment where many have been told that to be good, to be moral, to be “on the right side of history,” they must be perpetually outraged and emotionally flooded by every injustice, real or imagined, amplified by screens that never sleep. This is not the posture of moral clarity; it is the posture of manipulation. As a society, we lose our footing when compassion is severed from wisdom.
There is a difference between caring and being consumed. There is a difference between concern and captivity. And there is a difference between righteous action and righteous-sounding neglect of one’s own duties.
The principle is ancient and enduring: order your loves rightly. Begin with what God has entrusted to you. Tend your own ground before you attempt to cultivate the fields of others. This is not callousness. It is wisdom.
The Lie of Limitless Moral Obligation
We are being sold a lie, one wrapped in the language of empathy but powered by dishonesty. The lie says: If you are not emotionally devastated, constantly angry, and publicly performative about every perceived injustice, you are complicit.
This lie is unrelenting and corrosive. It preys on the vulnerable and floods their minds with the urgency of one cause after another often without a moment to stop, think, and access how destructive it is to their wellbeing and sanity.
I have seen the videos. People weeping uncontrollably. People shaking with rage. People abandoning their work, their families, their health, and their sanity because they believe the fate of the world rests on their perpetual protest. Many of these breakdowns are driven not by facts, but by narratives carefully engineered to hijack emotion and bypass judgment.
Here is the hard truth: No human being can carry the suffering of the entire world. Attempting to do so does not make you virtuous; it makes you brittle.
If you were to lend your emotional energy to every injustice on earth, past, present, and future, you would have no strength left to live your own life, let alone help anyone meaningfully. Outrage without order is not moral seriousness. It is chaos dressed up as conscience.
The Sphere: A Fence, Not a Prison
Think of your life as a garden enclosed by a fence. Inside that fence are the responsibilities explicitly placed in your care: your faith, your character, your family, your work, your local community. This is your sphere of concern.
A fence is not a prison. It does not deny the existence of the world beyond it. It simply establishes stewardship.
A man who ignores weeds in his own garden while lecturing his neighbors about theirs is not noble; he is negligent. Parents who sacrifice their children’s stability on the altar of a political cause are not heroic; they are confused about what love requires.
Living primarily within your sphere is not abandonment of the suffering of others. It is the only way to remain sane, grounded, and genuinely useful.
The Difference Between Compassion and Consumption
Morality does not command us to be emotionally destroyed by the pain of the world. It commands us to love our neighbor. Love is not hysteria. Love is patient, deliberate, and truthful.
We can pray for the suffering. We can give generously. We can speak wisely.
We can act locally. But we cannot neglect our own homes while attempting to rebuild the homes of others. We cannot save distant strangers by sacrificing those closest to us. That is not sacrificial love; it is misplaced devotion.
There is a reason airplanes instruct parents to put on their own oxygen masks before assisting their children. A suffocating helper saves no one.
Manipulation Thrives on Emotional Exhaustion
Those who traffic in dishonest narratives understand something profound: a constantly outraged population is easy to control. When people are overwhelmed, they stop asking careful questions. When they are emotionally exhausted, they surrender judgment to slogans.
This is why some movements demand total emotional allegiance. This is why dissent is framed as hatred. This is why nuance is condemned as betrayal.
A person who cannot rest, cannot think. A person who cannot think, cannot choose. And a person who cannot choose freely is not free at all. Wisdom requires distance. Truth requires patience. Moral action requires clarity.
You Are Not the Savior
This may be the most liberating truth of all: You are not the savior of the world. There is only one Savior. When individuals begin to believe that history hinges on their constant activism, they assume a burden never meant for human shoulders. The result is predictable: burnout, bitterness, broken families, and a quiet resentment toward the very people they claim to be helping.
Humility is remembering your place in the story. Faith is trusting that God governs what you cannot. Courage is doing what is yours to do, no more, no less.
As long as humans roam the earth, injustice will abound. That reality does not absolve us of responsibility; it defines its limits.
Wisdom Is Discerning When to Speak and When to Build
There are moments when voices must be raised. Silence in the face of evil can be sin. But perpetual shouting without discernment is not courage but noise.
A man who works faithfully, loves his family, honors God, and serves his community is not disengaged from the world. He is anchoring it.
A woman who chooses stability over spectacle, prayer over panic, and wisdom over viral outrage is not indifferent. She is strong.
The most profound cultural change often comes not from mass hysteria but from millions of quiet, faithful acts repeated over time. Seeds grow underground before they ever break the surface.
A Call to Ordered Action
So what does a reasonable sphere of concern look like in practice?
Guard your mind. Not every headline deserves your attention. Not every video deserves your emotional investment.
Anchor your priorities. Faith, family, work, and community are not distractions from justice; they are its foundation.
Give wisely, not impulsively. Support causes you have researched and trust. Charity without discernment is vulnerable to abuse.
Pray without ceasing. Prayer is not passive. It aligns your heart with God’s wisdom rather than the world’s panic.
Act locally. You have far more influence where you actually live than where algorithms want you to fixate.
Rest without guilt. A rested soul discerns truth better than an exhausted one.
This is not retreat. This is readiness.
Hope Without Hysteria
The world does not need more people screaming into the void. It needs men and women of steady conviction, clear judgment, and ordered love.
You can care deeply without collapsing. You can be informed without being inflamed. You can serve others without abandoning your own. That balance, often rare, quiet, and powerful, is what preserves civilizations. And it begins at home.
“When compassion outruns wisdom, it becomes a thief—stealing peace from homes while promising justice to the world.” — Alma Ohene-Opare