Compassion: Market Price

I want to talk briefly about compassion. How some people have it when you don’t expect them to, like professors who you expect to be rigid about deadlines smiling and saying that illness is an acceptable excuse for turning in your midterm two days late. Or like people who don’t have it who you expect to, like the people in your small group at church who have no problem saying in front of a room full of “good Christian people” that they have a hard time having compassion for people with AIDS because of the behavior associated with it.

Compassion makes people worth spending time with. It makes institutions worth attending. That professor’s school: I feel secure in my potential here. That church: I haven’t returned since that day. Compassion is like an emotional Morse code that everyone knows. Some people choose not to use it, but when someone is speaking to you in that language of compassion, you know automatically. It’s physical, verbal, and emotional all at once. The body language, the tone, the eyes all tell you “I am going to do everything I can to make you feel safe.” Or not.

Remember that whether you’re a preacher, a teacher, a maid or a senator- everyone you meet can feel your level of compassion. And if you don’t have it you’ll be losing money, votes, fans.. you name it. Whatever you want from people if they read your compassion code and know that you don’t care about helping them, or at least making an effort to understand them- it’s over. You’ve lost them. And it’s harder to regain after you’ve lost it than it would have been if you’d shown them compassion from the start.

If you’re representing a business, a cause, or a political agenda you must communicate at every level to every person that you interact with that you want their experience with you to be positive. How many times have you stopped going to a restaurant because of bad service? How many times have you gotten a gut feeling that a politician is even more slimy than the rest? How many times have you not gone back to a club, a class, or a church because you didn’t feel welcome? Because you didn’t feel like the people cared?

It’s all about compassion. The quality of every relationship small or big you have will rest on compassion- both ways.