What is compassion anyway?! Try looking the word up and you’re
in for a bit of a journey through definition, interpretation, intuition, and
explanation.
I prefer a simpler path and think of compassion as feeling
things as others may BE feeling them, how I’d BE feeling them, if only in my
imagination, were I in the other person’s shoes.
I liken it to empathy, but NOT so much sympathy. Although
according to the dictionary both are synonyms for compassion. Oh well…
Having compassion is a thing far less ambiguous. When I DO I
know it. For instance when Gracie and I were attacked some months ago by two
dogs, my first thought, once the dogs were pulled off us, was how terrible must
that have been for the woman whose dogs they are…
I know that might sound indicative of my brain BEing
banged-up, but there you are. I am a dog’s person and when that dog does
something I feel a level of responsibility that is a natural extension of
myself.
Compassion is a LOT more like walking a mile in someone else’s
moccasins than pretty much any one word synonym captures. It is how we BE human,
perhaps even fundamentally. It is the courage to venture out BEyond myself even
for just the tiniest of moments…
I love you, Currie
1 comment:
To me-- think of compassion as something you certainly can manage to muster up when you can't even understand or feel (empathy) what the other person is going through. Even when you don't like them or what they have done or said. Compassion is something any of us should be able to have for anyone--for no other reason than we are all human beings. But that's just my take on it. :)
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