What is Your Definition of Compassion?

 From the Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition is “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” That sounds like someone spent many years in therapy to come up with that one!

Compassion comes out of personal pain and frustration. If you were one of the lucky ones who got a date for the prom, how would you be able to understand the pain of never being asked? 

Well, for some folks it comes naturally. They “get it” without living that moment of pain or frustration. For others, they never “get it” and this is what I am writing about today.

Barbara Sher (author and speaker), uses a term, “infant narcissist.” When we are born, we are all one of these. As a child, all our needs are taken care of. We are dependent on adults for our survival, but as we grow, we move past that. Our need for connection plays a part in caring and wanting to help others, meaning, it isn’t all about us. 

We’ve all known or have met a person who just doesn’t understand that everyone else’s life doesn’t revolve around his/hers. President Donald Trump comes to mind. The narcissist lacks the compassion to understand that we all need understanding from one another.

In essence, we should be grateful for all the pain and frustration we’ve gone through in our lives. Because of it, we gain connection with each other. Compassion equals connection, and without it, we can’t be the caring human beings that most of us strive to be.

I’ve made many mistakes in my life, and I’ve hurt a lot of people in the process, much to my regret. When I did, it was because I lacked the compassion to understand the harm I was causing. As I've gotten older, my ability to feel compassion toward others has improved. I'm so thankful for that.

Due to all the traumatic events that happened in 2020, many people lost their ability to be compassionate. Lets hope that changes in 2021.

Until the next time...