Day of Compassion Blog

                I tried to have a day of compassion nearly all week long (Thursday my attempts were only half-hearted), but I am still not sure I succeeded. I started with trying to define in my mind what a day of compassion would look like for me. I decided that first I would try to be compassionate by noticing and being aware of the compassion that others showed.  All week long I felt like the word was a nicer place. I talked to more strangers and had wonderful conversations with friends as I noticed (usually without pointing out) their kind efforts. Also, I am happy to report and even when I knew the kindness was occurring on a person’s day of compassion it still felt wonderful to be the recipient of said compassion. I also made an effort to notice when I naturally showed compassion and kindness to others. I know I felt happier and more connected to others and that noticing these efforts increased the frequency of said moments.

                I also spent some time thinking about who I knew that was a model for compassion. I thought about friends, family, and community members who seem to do big compassionate acts with seemingly little effort. I admire that practiced skill and spent much of this week in particular begin grateful for the influence of these people in my life.

                One thought I had  early in the week was reminiscent of my childhood Sunday school teachings. “Thoughts become actions.” So, I made a conscious effort this week to think compassionate thoughts and when I found myself getting frustrated and thinking negative thoughts I made an effort to adjust my thinking.

                So I made and effort all week to notice compassion, appreciate compassion, and think compassionate thoughts. I kept thinking to myself that I would do all that all week and then when an opportunity to show extra compassion comes up, I can have that amazing compassionate moment and then I will be able to blog about compassion. Well, guess what? No amazing compassionate moment happened. I do feel like overall I was happier this week than I would have been, especially since as many of you know it was week that had its share of sadness and stress, and I hate to say I was a failure because of that, but to be honest, I didn’t do any one thing out of character or that stretched my nature to be compassionate. I tried to be nice and notice when people were nice, not exactly great blogging material, but there it is.