Compassion

[Alexander Nicholi]

i'd like to gauge the population here a bit. what do you think of compassion? is it important to you? not so much? how much, then? do you often exercise compassion? how big of a role do you think it plays in life?



personally I think compassion is the key to eternal happiness and completion, and i'd go so far as to believe that the less you hurt the longer you live (the whole all is Brahman Hindu philosophy). I know a lot of people argue "well being compassionate only works if everyone's doing it" and I feel that's a terribly closed-off and self-serving way to look at it. the whole point of compassion is to be nice for the good feeling it brings you in doing so.. in other words doing it for its own sake and your emotions in acting as such. being truly compassionate and loving is a theme in a lot of religions, as Jesus said "love thy neighbor, love thy enemy" and how the Dalai Lama is often seen as an arbiter of compassion in a way too. I take well to Eastern philosophy and I learned that it's a lot easier to be compassionate when you think Eastern, so there's that too.

the downside is it's really difficult to practice, but if done correctly, is far more rewarding than anything else that we know of. that's just my two cents on it though, what do you think?

 

[Spacy]

Of course it's important, compassion is important when humans bond with one another. It makes them happy knowing that someone else was nice to them and the person being compassionate gets to know that they improved someone else's day.

 

[Kanzler]

Compassion works when everybody's doing it, but I believe the primary reason to be compassionate isn't to "make it work" but because it's the right thing to do. Doing good does not always involve doing something in your self-interest.

 

[gimmepie]

Compassion is one of the reasons the human race is still around really, because back in the caveman days we helped and supported each other instead of taking turns to get mauled by the big sabertooth.

The thing with compassion is that it definitely works better when everyone is doing it, but the cycle has to start somewhere. If one person does something solely for the benefit of others, then other people are liable to share in that compassion.

Besides if self gain is that important to you, if you do good deeds towards others then people feel more inclined to do good things for you. I wouldn't call that compassion, but it would still be an improvement for a lot of people.

 

[Outlier]

I do value compassion provided you're not allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. It's a very admirable trait to have. That being said I find it hard to show compassion sometimes unless it's in regards to a matter I consider serious or unless it concerns someone I really care about. I'm not a very empathetic person in general, in fact I'm rather self-absorbed and I think I might be somewhat of a narcissist.

 

[Esper]

I do value compassion provided you're not allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. It's a very admirable trait to have. That being said I find it hard to show compassion sometimes unless it's in regards to a matter I consider serious or unless it concerns someone I really care about. I'm not a very empathetic person in general, in fact I'm rather self-absorbed and I think I might be somewhat of a narcissist.

Yeah, I would feel a lot easier being compassionate if there weren't so many people out there who would take advantage of you. And I don't just mean individual bad people who would walk all over you, but the way most institutions are you can't usually be compassionate. I can't stop on my way to work to help someone stranded on the side of the road because then I'd get in trouble for being late to work, regardless of the reason. I can't donate much money to charity because I don't know if my landlord is suddenly going to raise the rent. And so on. That's not to say that I would necessarily do this compassionate things, but I feel like it's been ingrained in me (and a lot of people) to expect the world as a whole to be unsympathetic and unforgiving so we sort of mold ourselves to survive.

 

[Psychic]

I think it's worth defining what compassion means to you and how each person practices compassion, because I think many people interpret and practice it differently.

It sounds like a lot of people here seem to mostly regard compassion as just being kind to people, and perhaps even being selfless to a degree. According to Wikipedia, compassion is like empathy, and it "motivates people to go out of their way to help physical, spiritual, or emotional hurts or pains of another." To me, a large part of this is first understanding the suffering of others - it's great to be kind and all that, but unless you really understand why someone is suffering and seek to meet their specific needs, just being nice doesn't actually help that much. Being open-minded to that person's emotions and experiences, giving them a voice and treating them as individuals can better help you understand the person's needs, and makes compassion come from a more genuine place. The kind of compassion a homeless person needs versus the kind of compassion someone who has suffered from racism needs are very different, and we need to be aware of that in order to properly help them.

While "be nice to everyone" is a great philosophy overall, generally you need to have a more nuanced dialogue to really help create positive change. A big part of that often just comes down to listening to the person, truly hearing their perspective and their story, and believing them so as to best help them. If we can't do that, then we won't get very far.

~Psychic