Bears Don’t Care About Your Problems

Bears don’t care about your problems. Call your mom, tell your Twitter followers, or take a Sharpie and write them on the wall of a public restroom if you must, but bears certainly don’t give a shit.

Bears do not care how many likes your bikini selfie got on Instagram today. Bears do not care if the grocery store was out of your favorite almond milk. Even if you have slight anxiety because you haven’t mowed your lawn in a while and it’s more than ankle-high, bears could not care less.

Did you drop your phone and crack the screen? I know, AGAIN? Don’t go looking for a bear to commiserate with you. Bears don’t have phones, or sympathy for humans who can’t take care of nice things like $700 computers they keep in our pockets, or on the table while having lunch with a friend because we now have the attention span of a goldfish.

Bears do not care if you are not feeling motivated, or if you aren’t happy at your job, or if you are just SO BUSY all the time now. Bears are busy too. Busy spending zero time wondering how you’re doing out there in the non-wilderness parts of the world, and instead focusing on their own survival, which is a little less trivial than the stuff you’ve been complaining about. Like you, bears have not been putting much money in their 401(k). But bears don’t have 401(k)s, or any sort of money system. Or retirement.

Bears don’t want to hear about your new diet, what you’re avoiding, or what you’re only eating now, or how it makes you feel, or not feel. You can eat rocks and die, for all bears care. Bears are eating everything they goddamn can right now, and by the way, don’t you think they’re looking a bit more athletic compared to last summer?

Just kidding. When it comes to fucks bears give about what you think, the official total is zero.

Bears are not arguing about politics with their uncles, at awkward family get-togethers, on Facebook, or anywhere. Bears are not sitting in a Starbucks with their friend Christy telling her about what that toxic bitch Kim said to Jen about them last week, even though they hate drama and the only reason they’re telling Christy is because she doesn’t see Kim for who she is. Bears don’t worry about gossip.

Bears can run 30 miles per hour, though, which is faster than Usain Bolt, for the record.

Bears are out there, doing their shit, being “in the moment” like we all talk about wishing we did a better job of. Bears are not meditating and trying to find their center. They are trying to find food, keeping track of their kids, and occasionally destroying other species that fuck with them. Then they sleep. Bears do not have time for your shit.

Bears are, however, very interested in the food you bring into their habitat, and do not have very good manners, or really any perception of property rights. So, if you’re backpacking or camping in bear country this summer, make sure you use a bear canister or properly hang your food from a tree before you go to sleep at night.

—Brendan

More stories like this in my new book, Bears Don’t Care About Your Problems, out now.