Sympathy has a chain reaction

Anupama Singh
Nov 5 · 3 min read

When I was 13, my Facebook statuses used to be I hate my parents. My parents were terrible, and if their parenting skills had worked on me, I would have turned out a disaster. But now, at the age of 27, I would say my mom is the strongest and a real feminist, and it is not because of their parenting skills or love.

At every new year eve when I think of my last 365 days, I always find my self happy living with fewer regrets, less sadness and some more fond memories and experiences. There has always been death and grief, but I find myself standing firm on my feet on the grave of all the sad emotions, bad experiences and decisions. I see myself as a better version of me from the last year, which is a great achievement for me, or I am a narcissist.

So when I think of the magic which keeps me going in this tough life and growing out of my blues days while I am living alone in a city where I hardly know anyone, I realise it is sympathy and compassion of people around me and long-distance love of my best friend. I have always been a fortunate soul to be blessed with good people around me. These good people are nothing but the blessing on earth with compassion and love for everyone around them.

At my teen time when I was suicidal and bullied I had my best friend letting me stay with her, listening to my laments about my parents, crying almost every day. In the beginning, she was this classmate who sympathised with me because I had no friends then she became a friend who saw the funny side of me and later a best friend who inspired me, showed me my potentials, taught me to believe in my dreams and chase them.

It wasn’t just her, almost everyone that I can remember around me had a positive impact on my life except my parents. While my grievance was making me a better and stronger person because of the help I was getting from my friends; it was making them bitter and weaker day by day. And I know why! They had no-one to listen to them; they were in their mid-life, in Indian society midlife sadness, the crisis is not real. They had to pretend to be okay while I could cry anywhere with anyone; they didn’t have that one person to express their sadness, anger, grievance and suffering as I did.

They could not go on facebook and rant about their miserable life or have a mental breakdown in public because instead of sympathy, they’d get judgement and mockery of society. They only had superficial and hypocrite people around them instilling the fear of what the society would think, they didn’t have compassion around them, and that is why they never learnt to be compassionate with me.

I have seen the power of compassion. It is like the affection of a mother nurturing her child and this chaotic, depressed and suicidal world around us needs warmth and genuine compassion. It does not matter if we are 30, 40, 50 if we want to cry, we should be able to cry. We all should go to our friends and tell them we are not okay. If your friend is not listening to you, then you are friends with assholes you are better off without them. Go to that one stranger who seems sympathetic and talk to them, if they make fun of you, they are a terrible and horrible human being. Trust me it is a big tribe of friendly people, and if you look for one, you will find one who would listen to you and understand you.

I try to be like my best friend or like the people around me who taught me the power of being kind to people and every time I see someone, who needs help I try my best because you never know when a suicidal thought might become a suicide. I have inherited compassion from people who were sympathetic to me, and I wish to grow the same in people who need it just like a chain reaction so if you have an opportunity to be nice to people don’t miss it, you might just change a life.

Anupama Singh

Written by

Just my random thoughts.

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