"Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival," The Dalai Lama.
Well, that is worded strongly. Compassion is essential for human survival. That may well be true. We can all cite examples in human history of the atrocities that have occurred in the absence of compassion. There was a time when people were encouraged to have empathy, not compassion, as compassion was interpreted as pity. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary defines compassion as "suffering with another, sorrow for the distress of another with the desire to help." Whereas, empathy is defined as, "the projection of one's own personality into the personality of another in order to understand him better, intellectual identification of oneself with another." Perhaps the world is better fwhen both compassion and empathy are practiced, although I really like the "desire to help" that accompanies the compassion definition.
Compassion is what I strive for with living with dementia. When people pressure me to put Dwane into assisted living, I consider: what is best for him and for myself? That is the best I can do.
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