Thursday, February 16, 2017

One Thing The World Needs More Of: Compassion

One word: Compassion. In the dictionary, it's a noun defined as "sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others."

Forget hate, anger, fear, and anti-whatever. Remember to have some compassion for your fellow humans, your neighbors, strangers, and your loved ones.

In this current day and age, we need more compassion for ourselves, for each other and especially for those who are less fortunate than us.

With compassion, comes so many other things too, like empathy and understanding. Many times the urge to help others is strong with the people who are compassionate, empathetic, and understanding. They are often synonymous, turning compassion into a verb because it drives people to act. 

When I Google'd compassion for the definition, I also found that there is an organization called Compassion International, which is a Christian humanitarian aid organization dedicated to the long term development of children living in poverty around the world through sponsoring opportunities. I'd have to do some research on it before forming an opinion, but it's a great example shown just in their name, short mission statement, and actions that they have compassion for children living in poverty. They have created opportunities for the children by creating the opportunity for other compassionate people to help them who may not otherwise know how to help. 

Compassion drives out fear and misunderstandings because it shows that the people who are compassionate are also educated, selfless, and will do what they can to help others. We need more people with compassion in this world to drive out the fear, to educate others to drive out the hate, and to be pioneers and lead by example. And then, hopefully one day, sooner rather than later, we'll finally see more peace, love, and harmony in our world.

3 comments:

  1. I think on addition to selfless, it shows they are 'feeling', even deeply feeling people.

    I often have te remind myself there are loads of truly hurting people who aren't capable of feeling, when having a visceral response to someone seemingly lacking in compassion.

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    1. It seems that there are two kinds of hurting people - those who turn that pain into a selfless, understanding and empathetic response to help others feeling the same way, and those who internalize it and expect a handout.

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  2. I don't know if our minds are sort of linked, but I just wrote on a very similar topic on compassion two days ago. I think being compassionate means to sense the suffering in others, AND want to alleviate it. Action must be done. I like your point on how compassion is needed to drive out the fear people experience. Cheers!

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