The definition of compassion is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “to suffering together with another, participation in suffering; fellow-feeling” (399). I have felt compassion many times throughout my life. I believe all human beings have. For example, when the major tsunami hit southeast asia, india, and other different parts of the world, every country, every person, felt the lost that the individuals endured being at the specific locations. Many organizations donated money, effort, healthcare, and food to help get these people back on their feet. That is compassion. In the anthology, it also talks about compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is defined as “apathy or indifference towards the suffering of others or to charitable causes acting on their behalf, typically attributed to numbingly frequent appeals for assistance” (400). This is true, because many individuals such as myself see so many horrid events happen and feel too overwhelmed to help anymore. Feeling compassion towards someone or something will never end for me, but my actions become limited due to the infinite problems that occur. Compassion is existent through every living creature on this earth.
I have seen on Animal Planet, tigers milking a deer and protecting it from other lions because the deer was motherless. Regardless if its an animal or human, all will contribute and share the same suffering.
During the beginning of the school year, I was triumphed with emotion of homesickness. All I wanted to do was go home, take the easy way out by transferring to a less intimidating university, and be back in my comfort zone. I put minimal effort for my classes, skipped many times, and took no responsabiltity. Although my brain told me what I needed to do, my emotions chose my decisions. In Anatomy of an Emotional Hijacking, it talks about how “the thinking brain plays an executive role in our emotions—except in those moments when emotions surge out of control and the emotional brain runs rampant” (407). I have experienced my emotions controlling my actions. Usually reasoning from my brain keeps me on a straight path to what needs to be done and what the right thing to do is, but during the first few weeks of school, the emotion of sadness, homesickness, anxiety, stress, and confusion caused me to start off in my classes in the wrong path. I now am having to deal with the consequences I created by letting my emotions “guide [my] moment-to-moment decisions” (407). Although my emotions can get out of control and lead me to different complications, I believe without it, I won't be able to find reasoning in anything I do or believe in. My aunt has always told me to love with your brain, and this paradigm is similar to “harmonize head and heart” (408). I believe by doing or following what your heart wants and sending it through the brain and then back to the heart, that is the balance of what makes you happy and what can lead you to a better future.
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