Never Enough

Everybody that has strong beliefs in the many charities of the world must often get frustrated that no matter how much they help, it never seems like enough. There are a lot of fancy names for this, Empathy Burnout, Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma to name a few. I have read about other farm animal sanctuary owners going through these feelings. There are times I want to do more, save more, try to make a bigger impact on this growing problem. It is hard to say no when we are contacted to take on more residents, much harder than I could have imagined. I have to be careful with my emotions and try to stay focused on the residents we do have. But it is heartbreaking to see images on social media of animals that need to be rehomed for an assortment of reasons or abandoned. The hardest of all is the images of beautiful equines in kill pens, knowing that if no one steps up to save them they will be slaughtered. While doing research on starting and running a farm animal sanctuary, I read that the number one reason animal sanctuaries fail is because they take in too many animals to financially care for. I now know how this happens. I have to often remind myself that I alone cannot fix this problem, no one sanctuary alone can fix this although we would all like to. None of us can stop the cruel and senseless deaths of millions of farm animals each year. But together we can make a difference in the lives of the souls that are under our care. This problem, like most of the problems in the world, can only be resolved when we all work together. We as people can help by getting the animals in our care spayed and neutered, we can help by cutting back or eliminating meat consumption, and we can help by not supporting the exploitation of all species. We cannot let perfect be the enemy of the good. There is no perfect answer for solving this problem but collectively we can do good, collectively we can make a difference.