[bctt tweet=”Compassion is hard work, the opposite of compliance. “]
I think we simplify the term compassion, so much so that we lose a lot of its meaning.
I am guilty of it. One of the statements that brings me back on track is remembering that compassion is not compliance.
For me, the idea of compassion instantly brings up Buddha or Jesus. Both figures were known for their compassion.I think of the parables of forgiveness that both have. What I often forget, is that the reason they got to the forgiveness part of the stories is because they sought to create change.
Compassion meant understanding, and that understanding often left them at the opposite side of the things as they are. It gave them, and the people who lean on compassion, to ultimately understand and decide what something meant. If it meant change, they would go about making that change. The base of that energy was compassion, and I think it’s a super power.
Even so, it isn’t comfortable. Questioning people or the way things done never is. Often there is a price to pay for clinging to your convictions, even if it comes in a beautiful package.
It isn’t a clear path to get there. There is a mistake, where people confuse empathy with sympathy. There isn’t compassion to understand, just using willpower to tolerate.
Tolerating, and feeling sorry for someone isn’t a path to compassion, it routes people back to this road of ego. It is easier when you see people who you think are “worse” off than you, but it takes its toll nonetheless.
It becomes a ticking time bomb, a run on your feelings that can’t help to expose itself when the time isn’t right, and the world is annoying you.
That tolerance is just another way of compliance. Its allowing something to happen, which has nothing to do with understanding.
It isn’t a growth measure, it’s a stop-gap, designed to keep people at arm’s length.
Compassion cuts through that, and connects your inner value with your understanding. It isn’t complying to the world around you, its being patient to understand it, and being a change agent when necessary. That leaves people extremely vulnerable, and sometimes, people angry.
It’s hard work, the opposite of compliance.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 