An occasional series based on stuff that hangs in my room… or my heart.
Empathy comes easily to me. Always has. You pick a situation, happy or sad, good or bad, and if I can picture myself in it, I’m there with you. It’s not that if one of your parents dies, I’m going to tell you right then the stories of when mine did, 
or that if you get a promotion at work, I’m going to talk about the best time it happened to me. But I empathize. I can even relate to feelings I’ve never had, like a new baby or winning the lottery, if I can imagine myself in them.
Compassion is another story. Compassion is about helping someone, even if you can’t see yourself in the situation, even though you know you would never make that bad life choice or you know you will never be so without resources that you are homeless or beg. Sometimes, judgment trumps compassion, and I show that judgment in my words and in my face.
The older I get, the more I see that situations people find themselves in aren’t necessarily anyone’s “fault,” and come to understand that even those where someone made a bad choice (and I’ve made plenty of them) do not mean suffering is a good or “deserved” outcome.
As I leave my room each morning, this is one of the things I strive most to do during the day. When I contemplate the day before I go to bed, it’s often the area where I have been the most lacking. I am grateful for the compassion others show me, and pray for the gift to better emulate their example.
