Types of Compassion
Suppose we happen to board into an empty bus and sat randomly in a seat reserved for old people. In the next two stops, the bus gets overcrowded with people. We then see an old person — who is too old to stand and hesitant to ask others for help — and decide offer our seat to them: to which they thank us truly. Is this an act of compassion that we can feel proud about? Not really. We sat in a seat reserved for them to only offer this to them later. Nothing to feel proud about, if not ashamed.
When we analyse: most of our acts of “compassion” fall into this category. When we do things that we ought to do, we don’t deserve bonus points. While compassion should evoke a feeling of gratitude within us that we could see the “ought” from “is”, it shouldn’t evoke the feeling of pride or ego within us, lest it becomes a reason for our downfall.
