Tag Archives: compassion

As far as I can recall, none of the adults in my life ever once remembered to say, ‘Some people have thick skin and you don’t. Your heart is really open and that is going to cause you pain, but that is an appropriate response to this world. The cost is high, but the blessing of being compassionate is beyond your wildest dreams. However, you’re not going to feel that a lot in seventh grade. Just hang on.’

Anne Lamott, Stitches  (via panasonicrxft500)

One of my favourite books that I had forgotten about as of late. I still have a fondness for midsummer’s night dream though.

Something I wrote about equality and anger and most of all my understanding of compassion and struggle to practice it.

One of the most disheartening things for me is hearing extremely intelligent people talk in a pompous and non-compassionate way.

It reminds me of something I read when the 99% vs. 1% was at the forefront and people were shouting about how they got where they were with no one else’s help so why shouldn’t everyone else. This is simply not true, most people were helped by many people throughout their lives from their parents and family who fed and clothed them, the population at large which paid taxes which paid for their school, paved the roads they drove on, and for the medicine they took. There are those who built companies before the, or the very company who they came to lead, and everyone who showed them any type of kindness or guidance along the way. “Self-made” is really a foolish term among humans, who seek ways to nurture one another, who form alliances, and build monuments.

In our society, even the people with the roughest lives have probably been helped along by someone, or the infrastructure our ancestors built, kindness from a stranger. It is preposterous, in my opinion, to believe that we’ve made our lives by ourselves, and that we do not need help, or that we don’t receive it. It is just as folly to believe others don’t deserve that same kindness.

One of my favorite lines out of all I’ve written is that “equality is not equal circumstance, but equal opportunity.” There are those better of and worse of then us, there are billions of people on this planet with unique needs and wants and skills, and giving them all the same life would not lead to happiness. I believe people deserve to have their abilities and dreams and ambitions nurtured. That everyone should have the rights to basic needs, to the support to achieve further, the understanding from others that they may need more time, or more encouragement, or more practice then someone else would. I believe others should be treated with respect even when we don’t understand their motivation, or actions, or mistakes.

I think we all deserve to make a lot of mistakes without being looked down on, or told off, or treated as failures. In fact, making mistakes pretty much requires putting in effort, often on something you are unsure of, and that is a type of bravery that needs to be more widely celebrated. We should respect the things one another try hard enough to fail at. Even if they are not the things we would choose.

As the title of one of my favorite books, and a quote that has stuck with me ever since “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.” Or for those of you wrapped up it literality, don’t judge a person until you’ve spent two months in their place. Of course, the twist is, we can never really be in another’s place, that is one of the miraculous and mysteries things about being a human being. We never really be anyone but ourselves. But to me, that is what the practice of compassion really is, giving one another the benefit of the doubt, and trying to imagine what it might be like in their place. What challenges they may face, what past struggles have weakened or strengthened them, how their upbringing and experience has affected their world view, goals and morality. Because how else will we ever understand each other, if we don’t leave our own thoughts behind, and forget that someone makes us mad, or thinks differently, but instead pause to think why they would think the way they do. What circumstances have caused them to be the way they are. What have they suffered through, and found joy in?

And with that, I would like to thank the person who inspired this post, who I have felt so angry at, for believing so differently then I do. And I will try to remember the struggles you’ve been through, the things you’ve needed to survive from, and the insecurities you may struggle with, and think more compassionately towards you. For we are both young and learning and although I don’t doubt you will become incredibly successful, I know also that you will change and learn and probably see things differently one day. Maybe not the same as I do, but still differently, and I hope you the best.

Sometimes I feel like I can’t change anything

and I become frustrated with the systems and all their imperfections and the people who know one speaks for, and the complexity and compassion and time required to positively change things and how tired people get how people don’t always get the help they need and how we don’t empathize as much as we could and I just sort of get freaked out and then I remember that there are a whole group of passionate young visionaries who want to do good things for this world and all her people and then I can breath again.

Talking with the roommates can get intense.

I just read a book.

My copy of tfios has yet to show up, and I haven’t gotten my hands on lola and the boy next door yet either, so today I made the cold, although short, trek to the library. I got a few books, but the one I read is Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr. What can I say except that I sobbed through the majority of the story. The story brought up some of my own fears and I felt myself close to panicking at a few points, but I stayed okay. It’s the story of a girl Deanne Lambert, who slept with her brothers best friend when she was 13 and he was 17. After almost a year of this, her dad caught them together, and he never looked at her the same since. Now she’s 16 and the boys in her school treat her like public property, her brother is a new father with his own problems, and her two best friends are in love with one another. But they make it through you know? There isn’t a flowery ending or a grand conclusion, just small steps taken to try and make things right and move on.

I don’t like hating things, I don’t like to say I hate things even, but I hate that teenagers treat each other like this. It’s so incredibly heartbreaking. What screwed Deanne’s  life was not that she had sex when she was 13. I’m not saying I advocate 13 year olds getting it on, but it wasn’t the ugly thing that it was portrayed at school. She just wanted to feel chosen really, to feel closeness with someone, to have their attention, and that is not a bad thing. What screwed up her life is the way the story was twisted and spread and lingered over, by her classmates and her own father, until she started to believe that was all she was. Pathetic. Trashy. A slut. Yet she wasn’t, she was just a girl, trying to find compassion and love. It’s true that she didn’t find love in Tommy’s 17 year old arms, but that’s all she was really looking for. What right does anyone else have to judge her for that. What right does anyone really have to judge anyone. We just go around in our lives not knowing how to be or what it’s like to be anyone else. But trying to know, trying to feel, trying to understand, I think that’s pretty much the most important thing any of us really ever do. Now I’m tearing up again, but hey, that’s okay. Sometimes I just get scared that we’re not doing it right, we’re wasting all these precious moments we could make things better, but then I take a breath, and say, the only way we can go is forward, so we might as well embrace it and do our best.

And be grateful.

I am so grateful to this author for stirring up these feelings within me so that I am reminded of the things that are most important. So that I can remember to live my life the best I can, even if I’m still scared some of the time. Breaths, one, two three. Breate in and out. I’m also grateful for John Green’s book tfios, even though I haven’t read it yet, because I can feel in my heart from the general themes people have let slip, and the response overall, that it will be a positive and beautiful thing in my life at this time.

It’s okay. Remember to be loving to people, even those who’s choices seem silly, or stupid, or wrong to you, because no matter how smart or experienced or right you are, you still don’t know.