Ever feel like you don’t have enough time to do the things you want or hope to do? Most of us in today’s hectic, technology riveted world can relate to this feeling of being at least slightly overwhelmed from time to time. Just a little more time for exercise, for family, for just simply doing nothing would be a good thing. I hope we can add one more thing to this list – exhibiting more compassion in our lives.
Compassion is defined as the sympathetic consciousness of others distress together with a desire to alleviate it. The important facet to the definition is the overt link of the feeling to action. Both elements are required for true compassion to be exhibited. Now, I clearly understand the challenges of our daily lives for kids, work, extended family, friends all dominate our waking moments and our emotional energy. In my own life, I am today trying to balance the relentless forward movement of my father-in-laws Alzheimer’s, my 23 year old’s frustration about his college degree not being worth much in today’s economy, my 16 year old son’s challenge of trying to determine what he wants to do for the rest of his life and how I might pay for his college, my 14 year old daughter just left for Florida with a friend and her family for spring break, my own stress of running a not-for- profit organization and my wife’s stress for all of the above.
I do remind myself frequently that, even with this list of stresses, that fill my day that I am lucky. I try to view each person I come into contact with as someone who has all the same kinds of challenges that I do. I try to show them that I recognize their humanity and that they have value. Further, I try not to become immune to the grim realities of the world in which we live. Everyday in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, there is a section on page 2 ironically called Law and Order. Each day, they report on violent crime from the day before and some court action on prior violent crimes. Just about everyday in the greater St. Louis metro area someone is shot and killed. Most are unknown to us. Most will be forgotten quickly from our consciousness. If we are to be more compassionate, we need to not let the loss of life at the hands of another be forgotten or, even worse, not care in the first place. The much harder charge is what we do to alleviate mindless violence. There is no easy answer; but, it is abundantly clear that reducing the level of poverty and increasing the quality of life in neighborhoods is a great step in the right direction.
If a horrific event like the killings of 16 innocent people in Afghanistan by a soldier or the terrible murders in Norway or anything local occurs, we should be moved to compassion, first and foremost, for the lost lives and not to policy implications for our country or our own community. We can get to the policy work; but, we should not lose sight of the humanity behind the event.



