Pay it Forward

Watch this video and tell me what you think about it. (click pay it forward)

I was in St Thomas for spring break 2009 with my dear friend Kayla when I first saw this commercial. We watched it over and over and realized that right there was compassion. Compassion is something big on my heart and has been for a few months now. I keep running into times to be compassionate. This post is going to be a big one. There are a TON of points I have to make about being compassionate.

Compassion: Deep awareness of and sympathy for another's sufferings.
Understanding with out judgment.
Kindness and desire to help others.

It is really easy to be compassionate for the poor children in Africa. When you see their hungry little faces looking at you it is human nature to want to help. Any child for that matter is easy to be compassionate for. I think it is easy to be compassionate for them because children don't know any better. They are in the state they are in because of the adults in their lives. It's sad to say that so much of what adults do to, for, and with their children changes their lives. Children don't know any better. We HAVE to be compassionate for them.

How then do we have compassion for people who we think DO know better? Like a cashier at Walmart. I'm sure everyone has had a cashier yell at them for no reason or worked as a cashier and been yelled at. Neither of these situations are very compassionate. We live in such a rushed society that we forget to stop and think about how others feel. We forget that honking and flicking someone off who isn't driving the way we want them to drive, affects their day. In our society its all about me me me now now now. Everything is rushed ordered or fast food or short cuts to the real solution to the problem.
So someone yells at us while we are trying to check out...what is yelling back going to do? It only makes the problem worse. Maybe that person is having a bad day and if we add to their bad day by yelling back or being angry we just spread more bad days for everyone to catch on to. Have you ever heard the expression Happiness is Contagious? Happiness is like a sneeze..but the bad news is... so is anger. When we are taken off gaurd by how someone reacts to us or by how someone drives we just have to try and realize THIS IS TEMPORARY. It will pass, they are having a bad day, they are in a hurry, I just need to relax. If we take care of our own emotions and be compassionate towards theirs we will not be spreading anger. :) Like in the video, if we spread good things they will come back to us. What goes around.....

Compassion: Deep awareness of and sympathy for another's sufferings.
Understanding with out judgment.
Kindness and desire to help others.

Understand, and sympathize with others. Their life isn't easier than yours... we ALL have rough lives at times. Just remember to not take your rough times out on others. COMPASSION is what will give you strength to remember: Sympathy, Understanding. Sympathy, Understanding, Sympathy and Understanding.

Another time when it is hard to be compassionate is when we become judgmental. I will have to touch on being judgmental in another writing because it is also a big deal to me. Be compassionate towards others, all others, even if YOU personally disagree with who they are or what they are doing. Just because a guy wears tight pants and more instyle shirts does not make him gay... and if he is who are we to judge how he is living his life. It is GODS job to judge. All we can do is be compassionate for that person. Why would we want to poke fun at them and make jokes about them? That only makes us feel better for 5 minuets before we hit our next victum. EXAMPLE: and older homeless person. Have compassion for them. Just because he has all of his belongings on his back doesn't mean we can make jokes. We DO NOT know how he got in this place. WE CAN NOT JUDGE. WE MUST SHOW COMPASSION. Smile at all people no matter what race, social standing, sexual orientation, hair style, clothes style, car style, hand bag. NO matter how big or small of a difference they have from you. SMILE. because it shows them kindness. If they need help, help them, because it also shows kindness. Don't think for one minute that you are any better than them. We are ALL God's people. We need to accept, love, and be compassionate for ALL people.

Compassion: Deep awareness of and sympathy for another's sufferings.
Understanding with out judgment.
Kindness and desire to help others.

I think that I could go on for days on compassion. I truly believe that it takes so much strength to be compassionate. For example: I have had so many problems with girl friends over the years. I always wondered why all these girls hated me so much. People would tell me "those girls are just jealous and they don't know how to deal with it." The thing was that I did make mistakes: instead of understanding that maybe these girls were just hurt because I was friends with their ex-boyfriend or ex-bestfriend I talked about it to other girls, who then told people and the girls who were mad would hear about it and I created myself a nice little web of "high-school-girl-drama" Now HAD I been understanding those problems would have been fewer. There would be less girls in my past that I regret hurting and less girls in my past that resent me. As a girl...becoming a lady...it is SO important to be compassionate. We don't really know why people are the way they are. It is our JOB to understand the importance of being COMPASSIONATE.

Peace&Love

Cordelia