Compassion for others.

I consider myself to be an extremely empathetic and compassionate person.  These two characteristics may be considered a good thing, but they have gotten me into trouble quite often as well.  It is pretty easy for me to get emotionally attached and get my heart strings pulled on.  In fact, this is one of the main reasons I have to take a reading hiatus after an intense book, or why I refuse to watch movies that have some kind of tragic event going on (just ask my former roommate, she tricked me into this many times).  I will NOT watch My Sister’s Keeper, Shell.  YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!   Reason being is I have a VERY hard time separating myself from the characters I read about or watch, even if they are not real.   I have no idea why this is, but I have been this way since I was a kid.  Lion King left me constantly having nightmares about losing members of my family and I pretty much cry through every book I read, even if it is not supposed to be sad.  Fact- I cannot stand this about myself.  Sometimes I want somebody to slap me and tell me to pull it together and stop being a sissy.

So, when I made the choice to visit Indonesia 2 years ago on a Habitat trip and witness in person the kind of things that go on in a third world country… IT. ROCKED. MY. WORLD.  My heart almost could not handle it but my faith held me together.  When I came back from that trip, I felt so disconnected, so alone.  My friends and family were so wonderful about listening to me, but I can tell when eyes glazed over pretty quick.  I couldn’t blame them either, there was no way in words to describe what I saw, how I felt, what my experience was really like.  For months afterwards,  I was seriously depressed.  I would cry over the silliest things.  I would feel so guilty when I was taking a hot shower or looking at a fridge full of food.  I did not know how to shake it.  I so badly wanted to just go back, but I knew I couldn’t.

One of the worst parts about coming back was that I struggled with having empathy for others, something that as I stated previously,  usually comes very easy to me.  But listening to people talk about their problems or complain about silly things that make their life “so hard” after spending time with families and children that had nothing, was very difficult.

What made me think of this is during my class this past weekend, we talked about the idea that “One person’s worst moment, is THEIR worst moment”.   Meaning, if the worst moment in your life, is the time that you lost your shoe- but another person’s worst moment is that they were diagnosed with cancer- each of those people deserves the same amount of empathy. That is obviously an extreme example and don’t get me wrong, I still have little tolerance for people who constantly complain about trivial things.  But the point is, nobody’s life experience is the same, but EVERYBODY goes through tough times.  Just because your tough time is “worse” than somebody else’s, does not mean they don’t deserve to be listened to. We should not compare to each other, we should listen to each other.  By sharing our experiences  with one another, we can better our perspectives on our own lives.

Have you ever come across a person who is a “one-upper”?  So not only do they constantly tell you how much better they are than you (without saying it outright of course), but when you just want to vent about your bad day, they say something like “You thought YOUR day was bad, mine was way worse because of XYZ..”.  I CANNOT stand when people do that.  But when I came back from this trip, I found myself going to that place in my head very often.  “You think you had a bad day, you should know what goes on there…”.  That is NOT okay.   If I come back from a trip like that and I am so consumed with my experience that I cannot relate to others, that is a problem.  My family’s problems are important.  My friends problems are important.  Trivial or not, everyone deserves to have somebody to listen to them and if I lose sight of that, I lose the ability to make a difference where I am RIGHT NOW.

If I could go on a million mission trips a year, I would.  But I can’t, so I have to make a difference in the world I am living in right here, right now.  I need to be a better friend, better girlfriend, better daughter, better sister, better admission counselor, better trainer, etc.  If I do some intense volunteer work every once in a while but I am not LIVING my life the way God wants me to everyday in my regular life, I am not serving my purpose. Plain and simple.

Stay blessed in the mess 🙂