Gabriela
Cazares-Lopez
M. Williams
English 1A
21 October 2013
Compassion
Compassion can be
described as having sympathy and sorrow for others are effected by
misfortune. To feel compassion is to feel pity for others who are
suffering and feel the need to relieve people of their hardship. As a
society, to understand one another there must be a sense of
compassion in order to properly function. And it can be argued, that
it is lack of compassion that makes a society lack peace. To have
compassion is the ability to combine sympathy and empathy to better
understand one another. In Gregory Boyle's Tattoos on the Heart,
he describes compassion, in its
truest meaning is not “in our service of those on the margins, but
in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship with them” (71).
Boyle indicates that compassion is not just the ability to help
others less fortunate or different than us, but as the ability to
also see parts of ourselves in others. It is the ability to find
common ground with others. It is then when people from all over, can
be compassionate with one another.
We
should show compassion because in doing so it means we are not
judging others. It indicates that we are not grouping others or
putting people in a box based upon our general knowledge of them.
Compassion shows that you have an interest in someone and are willing
to get to know them further before judging them immediately.
Compassion reiterates the notion that you “can't judge a book by
its cover, nor can you judge a book by its first chapter” (35).
Boyle goes on to explain that you cannot judge a person if their
first chapter is prolonged. When showing empathy towards others, it
sends the message that a person is willing to get to know someone,
and not judge them but relate to a person. Empathy and compassion
bring humanness to a society. When people are able to do and express
emotions such as empathy, compassion and sympathy, that is when a
society has achieved to understand one another a large level.
Great writing, Gabriela! Judgment absolutely gets in the way of compassion and passion for that matter. As soon as you "other" someone, you no longer feel the need to honor their place in the word or see value in that individual. Sad.
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