Compassion

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

– Dalai Lama

We all know we shouldn’t judge others. Many of the world’s religions and belief systems advise us not to judge. It’s a good ideal. However, it’s in our nature to judge. It’s common to look at others and compare ourselves to them, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. We may look at others and wish we had what they had — material possessions, success, relationships, physical attributes — and despair over our lack of these things. Or, we may look at others and see ourselves as superior, better than them because of our actions, situation in life or possessions.

I think life serves up to us lots of lessons, and one of mine was related to judging. I used to think that people who had gotten a divorce just hadn’t tried hard enough, that they failed in commitments, and that they were “less” than people who stayed married. I didn’t ever say this out loud, of course, but this was the dialogue in my head, judging others who were divorced and thinking how I would never be like that…and then I found myself facing a divorce of my own.

I came right up against my internal beliefs, and it felt like a slap in the face. Suddenly, I realized several things: that no one except the two people in the marriage knows what it’s truly like, that there are many valid reasons for divorce, that I was wrong to judge other people when I hadn’t experienced (and couldn’t possibly know) what they had been through, and that I was going to have to revise my beliefs if I was to live with myself.

I had to forgive myself, and it wasn’t easy (or quick). But it was a huge opportunity for me to grow and learn. Cultivating compassion for yourself and others is essential in the journey to inner peace and happiness. Fortunately, we humans still haven’t mastered perfection, and we get many opportunities to learn compassion for ourselves.

For more on compassion, read Leo Babauta’s post on the 7 practices to developing compassion.