I hear the word compassion a lot lately. So much so that I actually spent some time thinking about what it means. I believe I am a compassionate person most of the time. So I tried to think of situations in which I was not compassionate. The first one that came to mind is the way I treat people who call me on the phone trying to sell me something. I have contrived several situations to torment them, such as pretending I was so upset I was having a heart attack, or they were calling a crime scene and they may now be a suspect. I used to listen to the caller and then place the phone in front of the TV and let them talk to the TV for a spell. Many of these callers are calling from some third world country where they have one of the best jobs available. Now the hard part, they are human beings just like you and me trying to make their way through difficult situations, often times feeding their family or just plain surviving! They found a job and were trained to sell us something that we probably do not want. Most of us have jobs, a few of us have jobs we enjoy. Many of us have jobs that simply pay the bills as life grinds on. These poor people who were lucky enough to find a job should be commended. They are trained to harass you until you buy something and if they do not, they are fired! My new approach is, “thank you for calling, please do not call back and have a good day”. I think this is a relatively compassionate response.
Here is another example. We all have been on the phone with companies who have hired people from other countries to answer our questions about a product, or a phone issue or any number of things. This can be incredibly frustrating! Again, these people are living in a third world country, making subsistence salaries and probably raising a family on the few dollars they make harassing us. Yes, it is absolutely infuriating when you need help and you can barely understand the person answering your questions. If they are totally unsuccessful enough times, they will be fired and if they have children, they will probably go hungry. I have said many times, “I do not understand you, could you repeat that?”. I try to be COMPASSIONATE to their situation but sometimes it is difficult!
Many times, the most difficult people to be compassionate with are the people closest to us. When we are emotionally close to these people, we tend to expect more from them. We sometimes jump to conclusions. We say hurtful things that we would never say to someone else. This is a very sad feature of human relationships.
Here in the USA, with one of the highest standards of living in the world, we sometimes forget how lucky we are. Yeah, I complain like the rest of you about our dysfunctional government and a dozen other issues but overall, we have it pretty good. Because many of us have a reasonably good life, we should practice being compassionate all of the time, regardless whether it is a person half way around he earth or the person we love. I want all my readers to notice that despite the temptation to do so, I did not bring politics into this discussion.
One last point I learned recently: the Japanese elementary students learn compassion and life skills their first 4 years of school. From what I was told, they do not receive grades. Maybe a good place to start.
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