Caring
Good Morning,
Last week I made several posts concerning, kindness, equanimity, and compassion. One of the topics that was brought up was concerning the issue of "idiot compassion." Idiot compassion is the highly conceptualized idea that you want to do good. It refers to the tendency to give people what they want as opposed to what they need, and we all fall into this routine at some point or another.
Being in bands and a creative career for most of my life has certainly presented me with many opportunities to fall victim to idiot compassion. I had many friends consumed by alcohol, drugs or other sidelines in life (I call them kiosks and people get sidelined by them often) and in most cases the application of true compassion - giving them what they need and not what they want - has proven to be most beneficial ( and even saved a life or two).
It is tough watching people suffer, and there is a part of in all of us that wants to end others misery. What we have to realize is that we can end their suffering immensely by applying the right type of compassion. It is not always easy to walk out of a friends life, to tell someone you will not buy them another bottle, or explain why their work is not up to par. But to hide these truths from them, to lie or deny what really must happen is not being a friend or compassionate, we are simply enabling them to continue the behavior and living in our own denial. I may be making this sound easy, but it is not. As a turnaround of true compassion myself, I can attest first hand to the power of genuine compassion and doing what is required, it has saved many a life and career in my ever growing circle of friends. When people care enough to be truly honest, they care enough to make a difference and that is truly caring in the highest sense of the word.
I guess we could sum it up this way: Real courage allows people to fail and learn powerful lessons from the failure so that in the end, they didn't fail at all.
Peace and Love, Jim
Last week I made several posts concerning, kindness, equanimity, and compassion. One of the topics that was brought up was concerning the issue of "idiot compassion." Idiot compassion is the highly conceptualized idea that you want to do good. It refers to the tendency to give people what they want as opposed to what they need, and we all fall into this routine at some point or another.
Being in bands and a creative career for most of my life has certainly presented me with many opportunities to fall victim to idiot compassion. I had many friends consumed by alcohol, drugs or other sidelines in life (I call them kiosks and people get sidelined by them often) and in most cases the application of true compassion - giving them what they need and not what they want - has proven to be most beneficial ( and even saved a life or two).
It is tough watching people suffer, and there is a part of in all of us that wants to end others misery. What we have to realize is that we can end their suffering immensely by applying the right type of compassion. It is not always easy to walk out of a friends life, to tell someone you will not buy them another bottle, or explain why their work is not up to par. But to hide these truths from them, to lie or deny what really must happen is not being a friend or compassionate, we are simply enabling them to continue the behavior and living in our own denial. I may be making this sound easy, but it is not. As a turnaround of true compassion myself, I can attest first hand to the power of genuine compassion and doing what is required, it has saved many a life and career in my ever growing circle of friends. When people care enough to be truly honest, they care enough to make a difference and that is truly caring in the highest sense of the word.
I guess we could sum it up this way: Real courage allows people to fail and learn powerful lessons from the failure so that in the end, they didn't fail at all.
Peace and Love, Jim
posted by The Daily Buddha at 8:41 AM
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