There’s a FaceBook page I’ve been following daily called “The Optimism Revolution.” Have you seen it? It is really wonderful. Daily inspiring quotes that are less cliché and more thoughtful than most. Today the one he posted was particularly good. It’s the photograph you see here. It reminds us all that what we see is not always what we get. There are things going on in the background of every person’s life that we may not be aware of. Consider that what a person is saying or doing in the moment may have very little or even nothing at all to do with us, even though it may be directed at us. That can be hard, for sure. The trick is to be aware that this is occurring underneath the surface of everyone we meet. It is on that level that we can connect with one another as compassionate imperfect humans. With practiced awareness we can learn to quickly let go of the automatic judgments we form and recognize those opinions simply as thoughts that can be transformed, rather than immutable facts. We can give the benefit of the doubt to another, if we let ourselves. What a relief it is to know that we can let go of the burden of judgment and allow ourselves to view our world through the glasses of kindness and compassion whenever we choose. I mean, don’t you feel better when you’re filled with compassion rather than filled with annoyance? The choice about how we respond emotionally, if we give ourselves a moment or two to think about it, is always ours. We can let go of the thought patterns that are keeping us in our reactive upset and choose to move our hearts and our minds towards compassion. You would certainly hope someone else would do it for you on a bad day, wouldn’t you?
Consider compassion today, will you?
Be happy and well,
Sari Roth-Roemer, Ph.D.
P.S. I think you may need to follow “The Optimism Revolution” (https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Optimism-Revolution/155904444501553) on FaceBook, don’t you? It brightens my day on a regular basis…hopefully it will do the same for you. And of course, the more people who have brighter days, the brighter our world will be.
