We hear some pretty sad stories here and elsewhere. But we also hear some that are pretty stupid.
However, “sad” and “stupid” are relative. One person’s sad story is another person’s WTF?
Some people are pitiable in an “oh my goodness, let me help you!” kind of way. Others are pitiable in the way only a giant fuck-up can be. There tends to be no shortage of genuine sympathy for the first. But the last just becomes the target of derision.
Yet, there’s always SOMEONE out there who has some compassion there for everyone.
Where does your heart draw the line? Do you consider yourself a compassionate person, or does it take a lot for you to be moved by someone else’s pain? When you aren’t feeling particularly compassionate towards a sadsack, what is your typical reaction? Do you wish you were more compassionate?
I don’t worry much about people who crave all attention, both negative and positive until they are suffering from something not of their design, like chronic illness, death in the family, natural disasters. I don’t feel derision; I just don’t feel inclined to waste any energy on them unless they actually need help.
I worry about people with hurt feelings. I worried about the overweight women referred to as “fat girls” on a restaurant receipt, until they went screaming to the media about it for more attention. Then they became those people who crave attention rather than a minority treated unkindly. I worry about kids who are bullied, and I worry about the bullies, because I figure their life at home is probably not healthy, either.
I worry about strangers on this board, strangers in public who might overhear something hurtful. I worry about the shy people, those people who haven’t had much luck with relationships reading the PUA threads, the boob thread, other relationship griping threads. I don’t want genuinely kind, open-hearted people to hesitate or give up on love or sex because of the hateful exchanges between some of us with a low tolerance for sexism or double standards.
I worry about people who, due to the particular brand of their religious leanings suffer from shame or feelings of failure and inadequacy. I worry over indoctrinated kids who were taught frightful things, demons and possession and hellfires.
In real life, I help people move. I cook for sick friends and family members. I put out gardens for elderly or handicapped neighbors. I walk dogs. I… don’t do enough.
On a scale of 0-10, where 0 means completely merciless and not compassionate, and 10 meaning that they are way too nice to everyone that they get taken for granted, I would say that I’m somewhere around a 7. I try to be nice, and maybe sometimes do present behavior that is typical of a “doormat”, but I can recognize times where I’m clearly being taken for granted.
I never had kids, so since year dot I’ve made it a habit to do some sort of volunteer work as some sort of vague compensation for not having close biological ties.
Works for me. It did take me a while to learn how to establish boundaries…my knee-jerk reaction to someone in need, no matter how minor, is to immediately pitch in. I do better when I realise and keep those boundaries clear and understand whan it’s OK to say NO.
Overall I’m probably a 5 on the scale between 0 being totally non-compassionate, and 10 being totally compassionate.
It does vary depending on the circumstances- people who get fucked by fate tend to elicit a much more compassionate response than people who are screwed due to stupid and bad decisions.
I’m pretty compassionate in person. I can empathize with almost anyone, even someone who’s obviously gotten into a bad position at least partly because of his or her own bad decisions. I’ll generally try to help somebody who needs it when I can.
However, I’m far less willing than I used to be to really put myself out for others. I’ve developed an instinct for avoiding the people who tend to entangle Good Samaritans and drag them down. I’ll go out of my way to help, but I won’t do things that will make me or my family miserable. You might say I’ll give someone a ride now where I would have lent them my car when I was younger.
Online, I’m a little more cautious and a little less willing to take people at face value. Then again, while any help or support I’m likely to give on a message board doesn’t cost me much, it also doesn’t do much in real terms for the recipient either.
I lean toward pretty dispassionate, I guess, but there are some circumstances that increase or decrease my level of compassion. For instance, I’m more likely to feel empathy for an elderly victim of a crime than for a child, in part because there are so many better qualified people who will respond to a child’s pain and in part because I am impatient with hearing about how sacred children are and how their happiness comes before all else. I’m generally suspicious of people who are too open about how terrible their circumstances are, and I’m downright contemptuous of those who ask (usually via what I consider to be a gullible media) for cash to be donated to a fund at Big Bank, N.A. I think I have more compassion for people who don’t generally inspire the setting up of funds.
Darwin Award contenders make me snicker, but I do have sympathy for the people they leave behind. While I have considerable compassion for people who suffer losses while serving their country or community, this is rapidly being eroded by the idiotic media whores who insist on referring to any service member, police officer, or firefighter as a hero, regardless of whether he or she was doing anything heroic at the time of the loss (and who repeatedly refer to the Purple Heart as “one of the country’s highest military honors” :rolleyes:). The same goes for people who undergo a disastrous injury or accident and are then deified by the media for simply surviving.
I probably run about a 3 of 10 on bump’s Compassion Scale™ for what makes most people respond. I think I’m more compassionate than a lot of people when it comes to people on the absolute lowest rungs of society. I might give cash to a wino but I would probably turn away a panhandling teenager or somebody claiming to be a single parent needing diapers or formula.
I consider myself a pretty compassionate person. I tend to get affected by other people’s emotions quite strongly - and example would be when I was in line to check in for a domestic flight and the woman ahead of me was told she had missed her flight and she broke down in tears and said she was trying to get to her brother’s funeral. I had tears in my eyes very quickly and would have offered my own place in the next flight except she was going to a different destination.
On the internet, I’m pretty skeptical but I’m also solution-focused. If someone posts about a dreadful situation that seems plausible, my initial reaction is ‘yes, that sucks. Now what are you going to do about it?’ And I find it hard to remain sympathetic to someone who is given a tonne of good advice but doesn’t have the courage to put any of it into action. (The ‘yes, but…’ people)
It’s possible to be compassionate toward people who screw up their own lives. Some people just can’t do any better. Also, no one is perfect - even people who can do better will make mistakes, sometimes big ones.
I know some people like this. I hesitate to provide details because I post under my own name. I’ll just say that I am acquainted with more than one person whose own actions (or inactions) have led to terrible personal problems. I sometimes get very frustrated with these people, but at the same time I also recognize that they’re doing the best they can with the resources they have. So I do have compassion, up to a point. Even when there’s little I can (or should) do to help someone like this, I try to maintain sympathy. I don’t always succeed, but I try.
I care a lot about other people, generally. I know some people engage in behaviors that exacerbate their situations, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t deserving of compassion. And I know, some people (murderers, rapists) are considered monsters… but I don’t want them to suffer, either. No matter how ‘‘bad’’ a person is, I just don’t like seeing others suffer. It’s like once that person starts to suffer, it overrides everything else I know about them, no matter what horrible things they’ve done, I just can’t help but feel for them. I know that with very few exceptions it was their own pain that led to them hurting others in the first place.
I try not to measure other people’s suffering against mine because pain is highly subjective and we all feel it, it’s a universal part of human existence. And pain and compassion are highly linked, I think. It’s good to try to use your pain to connect with others who are also in pain. I always think it’s sad when other people respond to their painful experiences by shutting themselves down. (I also think it’s cowardly, to tell you the truth.) We should be doing the opposite.
There are a handful of people I struggle to feel compassion for. Namely, those without compassion for others. And I don’t even mean sociopaths, necessarily, just ordinary people who lack compassion. I don’t understand how someone could just not care.
Interesting. I’m of a very similiar opinion set, but would put myself well at the nine range on the compassion scale. I find myself quite willing to do a lot to help someone whose misfortunes were not the direct result of their own stupidity (and I find the Darwin Awards hilarious and insightful), but not particularly charitable to those who willfully make blatently bad choices and then expect sympathy.
I don’t want anyone to suffer, but for the people that you mention above, if they do suffer, it just doesn’t bother me much, if at all. It’s not an active wish for retribution, but I just don’t have any sympathy or compassion for them.
Same thing goes for those who make terrible choices. I was brought up with a very strong focus on making the right decisions, and have made a lot of decisions that were the right ones, but that were uncomfortable, painful or otherwise ones that I knew to be right, but that weren’t what I wanted.
As a result, it’s hard for me to feel much sympathy or compassion for people who don’t make the right decisions and consequently suffer the consequences.
FWIW, I think my compassion for horrible people is abnormal and it is perhaps not even a good thing. I just can’t help it. If a person is in pain, all I see is the pain. The other details cease to matter in the immediacy of that moment. And yes, it does occasionally lead to me being taken advantage of, but really, it’s a calculated risk I take.
As for people who make bad decisions, I think we all make bad decisions, I think not everyone is fortunate enough to have the tools to make the right ones, and I think a lot of people take that for granted. One of my favorite quotes, even though I am not religious, is ‘‘There but for the grace of God go I.’’ I think that way about pretty much everything. Every person has the potential for evil-doing or stupid decision making, it’s just a matter of chance who has the life experience to get them from point A to point B. But there’s also the fact I’m not sure I really believe in free will.
There is a certain point where the well of kindness begins to dry up, particularly if the person continues to have the same problem over and over and over without making any life changes. We all have to draw a line somewhere and I will do it when necessary.
If it is someone I do not know personally I usually look at their problems analitically. Whether they are a public figure, some one who happens to be on the news or someone who I only know as a fake name on a message board. Very little strong emotion for people I don’t know. For those I do know or meet I have a lot of compassion.
For clarity, feeling compassion doesn’t obligate anyone to act on those feelings. You can feel compassion for someone and still allow them to find their own way through their problems.
I’m glad you find it so, Olives. When I was a child I was so sensitive/empathetic that I’d break down in tears over sad fairytales and dead butterflies.
My mom said I’d have to toughen up or I was going to have a miserable life taking in all the grief of others. That didn’t work for me. Instead I just ended up denying feelings that I should have been allowing myself to have.
It’s not surprising that I got into the people-helping professions and it was there that I started learning about feelings and boundaries. It probably saved my emotional life.
Feeling compassion for “bad people” is not necessarily a weakness. In fact, it’s nearly a prerequisite for people-oriented jobs. It’s how you act upon it, or don’t, that means the difference between health and dysfunction. The same is true in families and social situations, I suspect.
We are so used in this culture to people using their feelings to manipulate others that we can be quick to deny them the right to have the feelings and still be responsible for dealing with them themselves.
To clarify, I don’t feel less compassionate toward people who make “bad” choices or whose misfortunes result from “stupidity.” There’s nothing so exemplary about my own life that I should judge the choices others make. In fact, I’m more likely to feel compassion toward people whose life choices or personalities make them unacceptable in polite society—people who aren’t likely to inspire charitable outreach or benefit dances. For instance, my area always has some sort of benefit auction or dance going for a young family affected by cancer or a farmer who fell off his tractor, but when our resident scary junkyard guy’s house burned down there wasn’t a whisper of support from the community. He’s the one I care about (and would help if I could), in part because nobody else gives a rat’s ass. Cancer Kid Family and Clumsy Farmer have all the churches and community organizations on their side.
I have some compassion for people who have been screwed over by the universe or the people in it, but very limited compassion for people who are suffering the consequences of their own bad judgment, i.e. people who chose to engage in obviously risky behavior.
Lost your house in 2009 because the factory laid you off and you had no money to make your payments? That’s rough; you have my sympathy.
Lost your house in 2009 because you couldn’t sell when the market imploded and you couldn’t afford the predictably jacked up rate on your ARM, even though you still had a job? Tough shit.
Had to delay your retirement five years because your nest egg shriveled up in the recession? That’s rough; you have my sympathy.
Gotta work well into your 80’s because you decided to invest ALL of your money with Madoff? Madoff shouldn’t have screwed you, but you’re an idiot for putting all of your eggs into one very questionable basket, and my sympathy for you is very limited.
Got hit walking across the street because the driver came around a blind corner while texting? You have my sympathy.
Got hit walking across the street because YOU were texting when a driver’s foot slipped off the brake? You’re an idiot; the universe is a dangerous place, and you’re supposed to use your eyes and ears to watch out for stuff like that.