Compassion Is Key

Having compassion seems to be a very important key to our healing.  But who exactly are we supposed to be compassionate with?  It's easy to see we should have compassion for our family and friends, the ones we are closest to and love deeply and have a connection with, but what about the nosy neighbor up the road, or the guy who's only purpose seems to be to see what he can get for free from others because the world owes him.  What about those who continually make choices that seem to make them miserable or those who are outright hostile towards us, certainly we shouldn't have to show compassion to them should we?  Shouldn't we reserve our compassion for only those who are truly deserving of it and how do we determine who is truly deserving of it?

I can think of one phrase or guideline that tells us who deserves our compassion,  Love Thy neighbor as Thy self.  In my eyes that pretty much covers everybody.  Notice, it doesn't say, love those neighbors who love you back or love those neighbors who share your point of view, beliefs, religion, skin color or any other outer factor that can separate us.  It simply tell us to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Couldn't we go further and say this also means, love our neighbors, ALL of our neighbors as if they are ourselves, seeing us all as one.  It seems, like most things in life, it's left us to us to interpret the phrase and see what feels "right" with our own soul.

I've often hear people speaking of compassion verses pity, saying that we should show others compassion, rather than pity.  I've found myself wondering  what exactly is the difference between the two.  What do people mean by this statement, this point of view that we should show compassion, rather than pity?

Let's look at the definition of the words.  Compassion is sympathetic consciousness of the distress of others together with a desire to alleviate it.  Pity is sympathetic sorrow for one who is suffering, distressed or unhappy. AHA do you notice the difference?  Compassion contains consciousness, pity contains sorrow.
Consciousness is a state of being aware, especially of something within oneself and sorrow is deep distress, sadness or regret, resultant in an unhappy or unpleasant state.  Which one of these would best serve us and be most beneficial to all involved?

If we are showing compassion we are being aware of the distress of others and desiring to alleviate it.  If we are showing pity we are finding ourselves in a state of deep distress or sadness and feeling regret for others who are distressed.  Basically we are now putting ourselves into a state of distress...Holy Cow!

After looking deeply into all of this it would seem to me that if we truly want to be helpful and transform distressful situations we will put our emotions aside to the best of our ability and look within our self to find compassion instead of pity for all of the people in every situation.  Doing this keeps us from getting sucked into being distressed ourselves and adding negative energy to situations that are already negative and stressful.  Showing compassion to ALL keeps us from causing division, it holds us all as one, worthy of love and understanding, even when outwardly we may not seem to deserve this.

With love and compassion to ALL, Mary Beth