Compassion's Double Benefit

Have you ever noticed that compassion is a limitless resource? Or, that when you feel compassion for another it somehow makes you feel better.

Not that feeling better is your goal, or that it is ever enough. Eventually (sooner is better) compassion should prod us into action: doing something to make things better. It's a meaningful and powerful start.

Compassion for others inevitably becomes compassion for you.

It helps you develop understanding, patience, tolerance, helpfulness, curiosity, and motivation. It helps you see that just as others are not perfect and find themselves in need, so is there also something imperfect and needful about yourself. Not a victim kind of need, but a human type of incompleteness.

Centered leaders pay attention to compassion and develop it into an active verb.

The next time you feel those pangs of compassion, I encourage you to take a moment to truly experience it. Feel it in the moment and ask, where is it leading you?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

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