“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Dalai Lama
Sample actions we could take to develop more compassion:
For the Social Area of Life, write a goal or vision statement for your best-self, such as,
When feeling disappointed in another, I pause, remember what I value in this person, and either give him “benefit of the doubt” or seek to understand what challenge has kept her from keeping a promise. If I offer empathy at a time she may feel pain, I can build trust instead of react to his reaction to pain creating a new situation for which I should ask forgiveness.
In cowboy terms, when my horse acts badly, there’s usually a horse fly or something else causing the problem–the action is not toward me, I am just in the way. Before I react, I should decide what’s the source of the problem and then help my horse with the horse fly or, if it is bad behavior, turn this into a training opportunity.
David