Finding your (com)passion
”Do not ask what the world needs. Instead, ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”
—Thurmond Whitman
That quote came to me from someone I don’t know, quite by accident. A few weeks ago, it came across my email inbox on a listserv about diversity in architecture.
The woman who sent it wrote about feeling for a long time that her work as an interior designer didn’t really add value to the world – that it wasn’t going to change the world, solve world hunger, or promote world peace — and that she felt bad about that…until she read this quote and realized that her work made her feel alive, and that was quite enough.
This quote made me stop and think about my own work. Like her, I feel inadequate sometimes—that my work doesn’t light the world on fire, that I should be doing more and that I should be making a bigger contribution to the world. But Mr. Whitman has a point. If more of us followed our real dreams and passions rather than those created to impress others, without worrying what others think or whether it’s good enough or important enough…imagine not only how freeing that would be for us personally, but how much more positive energy it would create in the world, too. What makes you come fully alive? Are you doing it? Or are you postponing it until you finish doing the work you think the world expects of you?
That was my original message for this newsletter. However, the recent news in Southeast Asia has caused me to think about another derivative of the word “passion.” And that is “compassion.” Focusing on my life’s passion seems pretty high up on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs when there are mothers wandering the beaches of Sri Lanka every morning waiting for the waves to bring their children back, and millions of people without food, water, or a place to live. And so, as we find our passion, let’s find (and act on) our compassion as well.
~*~ 37 Days: Do it Now Challenge ~*~
Compassion is the deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. How are you showing compassion to others around you? If your energy is centered only on yourself and your own needs, use this week to examine ways you can externalize some of that passion to help others.
Every day this week, show compassion to another human being—whether a phone call to reconnect with someone who needs you, a donation of time or money to a charity that helps people in real need, reading what you can about the people affected by the tsunami disaster and how you can help, an unexpected thank you to someone, or taking the time for a real conversation (without distractions) with someone who needs to talk.
It’s not enough to feel compassion; we must act on it, as Rabbi David J. Wolpe reminds us: “There is a story of a man who once stood before God, his heart breaking from the pain and injustice in the world. ’Dear God,’ he cried out, ‘Look at all the suffering, the anguish and distress in the world. Why don’t you send help?’ God responded, ‘I did send help. I sent you.’” By showing compassion, you may re-find your own passion.
