All of us want to be compassionate beings, I think. So if I say to you, I love you, everyone clearly understands. I love you like a father, I love you like a lover perhaps, I love you like a friend, a teacher, it doesn’t matter.
Everyone understands love, this concept I believe is universal. If, however, I say that I hate you, how do you hate me? You don’t like the way I look, my ethnicity, my philosophy, my political stance.
What is it? What do you hate about me? So we’re confused, aren’t we?
We don’t really know. So I believe that compassion emanates from, of course, love. Because we love each other, I think, basically, this is what we’re taught in Judeo-Christian society, love your fellow man.
So the question becomes, how do you show your compassion? How do you do it? Well, I guess the very first person you must show compassion to, obviously, is yourself.
You must be compassionate with yourself, but you must be demanding by the same token. You must demand certain things from you, out of your piece of life.
You must figure out this mission at some point, your mission, and get down to it, and you cannot be lazy.
I think all of us have this tendency towards procrastination, put things off, not really be focused on the things I should be, but if you say to yourself, hey Leon, get back on the path, well, normally you do, and you continue on with your goal in
life, your passion in life, whatever that may be. So after you’re compassionate with yourself, then you must be, of course, compassionate with the people around you, right?
And sometimes we have this concept of tough love, if you will, that sometimes you do have to be somewhat truthful with people, as painful as it is, you have to tell them in a nice way, perhaps that they’re not on their path, they are straying.
And I think one of the ways that we are compassionate, I think, is to be a model for others, because ultimately you can’t really teach anyone anything.
It’s only if I’m willing to absorb what you’re saying, or I watch your actions and I decide to copy them, that I can truly be a compassionate person, in that sense, right? And people, you never know people, do you?
I can touch you, I can feel the warmth of your body, but who are you? I mean, this is true for your children, for your friends, for your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, etc.
Everyone is distinct, but they do look at you as a model, if you’re willing to be that model, if you’re willing to be strong, and you could think to yourself, the people that you look up to.
I mean, certainly you want to follow them, and they were compassionate people. They’re compassionate with you, they’re willing to talk to you, to assist you.
I often think as a young man, 15, 16 years old, my mother was extremely compassionate to me. I guess the average person would say, well, she’s your mother after all, for God’s sakes. I mean, she’s going to be compassionate anyhow.
I think not true. Certainly, increasingly, young women are going to work. So both husband and wife are working to perhaps purchase some material possession, a house.
It is an important to own a house, of course. But I think it’s all about time. There’s only so much time.
And if your mother is busy finding a career, for whatever reason, she has less time for you. You become perhaps an icon that she created you with your father. That’s a wonderful thing.
She’s proud that she created you biologically. But unfortunately, this is just the beginning of nurturing. And I’ve read an article recently that it’s hard to be a nurturer and have a career at the same time.
Hard to do. So without some real balance, and people do it, of course, all the time. But it’s not easy.
In my case, however, my mother was a stay-at-home mom. That was very normal in this generation of baby boomers just after the war, right? As such.
And so they obviously, there was no concept that a woman was going to go to work after she married a man. She would stay home and nurture a family. Considered just normal.
And if you didn’t, it was considered somewhat odd. If your mother had to go to work and work full time, this was considered great tragedy. And I think we’ve seen the results of a lack of one parent, a mother, or a father, right?
If there’s not both parents in the family somehow, and one nurturing, one working, well, I think the result is not always pretty. And I think that we are, as a society, less and less compassionate that we used to be.
Now, part of our compassion, I honestly believe this, is sometimes, and I’ve said this before, there’s an element of tough love that must come along with compassion.
We certainly shouldn’t allow people to live on a street and be addicted to drugs and not live out any life at all. This is just not fair. Not fair to them, it’s not fair to the society.
And how do we do this? How do we deal with homelessness effectively, or drug addiction effectively, and still be caring, loving people? This is a question that is going to come to us, I think, in modern society.
But you could not have two million homeless people and semi-homeless people like we have in North America at the moment. 40 million people are part of the working poor, if not more. Many without adequate housing.
You can’t have these things in a progressive society. And capitalism, capitalism should be able to accommodate all elements of the society, right?
Especially now with AI., many people tell us that the job such as the clerk, in the bank, the bus driver, basic, basic, work will go away. We’ll be gone, and many restaurants now, for instance, you go and you actually have a QR code that you scan.
Well, at what point will the waitress be totally redundant? She won’t be necessary. The number of servers will be totally diminished.
Your food will be brought out by a robot. And I’ve been in restaurants, so the robot has delivered my food.
The only reason the waitress was there was to pick up the food, confirm the order, and put it on your table, so you can see where this is going. So I think compassion. Think to yourself, firstly, I’m going to be compassionate with me.
I’m going to wake up in the morning. I’m going to thank God that I have another day of life. I’m going to write in my notebook.
And then I’m going to get to work on building me, furthering my aims in life, completing my mission. Then I’m going to be a role model for my friends and others, and then ultimately, I’m going to have a moral stance.
I will be a teacher, a teacher perhaps like, in that sense, Socrates. He was never a teacher. He just asked questions and made people think.
Because in our DBA, Dont Be A Wage Slave organization, we promote two things, critical thinking and, of course, be aware of time. This is very important. So be compassionate.
Really try to help people. Open the door. Be gracious.
Slow down in traffic, right? And we’ll make the society ultimately a better place. Our small contribution will actually do something.
And I’ll just end with this thought. Put this in your notebook. An act of kindness.
What act of kindness did I commit today? Something as small as opening a door. Someone was gracious to me.
I went back with a box of chocolates. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is.
Something small that people are reminded that compassion still exists. That kindness, thoughtfulness still exists in the world. And you know what they say.
You know what they say. Critical thinking is everything, especially when it’s attributed to compassion. You do it with compassion.
And critical thinking is great. You take care. God bless.
Bye-bye.