The art of understanding

It is no secret that tough times are upon us. Recently I was talking with someone who is suffering greatly from this worsening economic climate. She is going to have a baby in three months and her husband got laid off before Christmas. She is having a difficult time coping. Luckily she works in a profession where she will always be needed, but she is worried about what will happen when her baby comes and physically she will need to be there for her child. She wants to breastfeed and wants to only have to work a little. Unfortunately her husband is having a hard time finding a job. While talking with her I was trying to lessen her fears and help her maintain a positive attitude, for the sake of her baby. She is a very tough person and if there is anyone made to cope with challenges like this it is her, but it brought to mind a subject I have been pondering of late. The challenges each of us face always seem hard to us but they are either obvious or impossible for others to see. Each person has their own struggles. While it is easy to see that this particular person's struggles are great, it is harder for people to acknowledge that those who are struggling in different ways are indeed struggling.

I was relating to my brother how scared I was because someone my daughter plays with had lice. He almost laughed right into the phone. He said "If the worst thing you have to deal with right now is whether or not your daughter might have lice, than you've got it easy." While what he said was technically true there was a certain something missing in the delivery of his sentiment. It is difficult to be in a situation where everyone knows you are struggling, but I think it is just as hard to be in a situation where you are struggling and everyone suggests that you shouldn't be having a hard time. It is easy to feel for those who are struggling financially, but it is harder to feel for everyone who is struggling in their own ways.

Compassion shouldn't be reserved for a certain tax bracket. It is something everybody needs. Just because people make a lot of money or even just enough money it doesn't mean that they do not have challenges. Denying certain people compassion because they aren't struggling in the most obvious of ways is unfair and sometimes downright cruel.

Now I am not suggesting that my brother was being cruel to me. I think in that situation I needed a little perspective thrust upon me. It is very important to count blessings. When most of us were little were we not reminded that there were starving people in the world to ensure we appreciated meatloaf. It is important for every person to consider what is good about their lives. That is what I shared with the person who was struggling in the above situation, I tried to point out where she was blessed. It can help people to know that everything will be ok. But the delivery of perspective should be a delicate procedure. It should be tempered with compassion, so that they understand that they aren't crazy for being worried in the first place.

One of the greatest lessons I have ever learned is that people crave understanding. Even if a situation seems silly to have elicited a certain response, it was elicited. You cannot change the way you feel about something until you acknowledge how you feel about it. That is why I truly believe that trying to understand a person's situation is the absolute best way to help. Trying to walk in someone else's shoes is the best way to make someone feel better.

For example a few months ago my toddler threw a fit over eating a burger we bought for her one day. She told us "she quit" in regards to the burger. Now our immediate response was for her to "get over it" and eat. We had paid money for that burger and she was going to eat it. After stopping though and examining why she didn't want to eat it we discovered that it was overflowing with mustard. Really there was more mustard than burger. If we had stopped and wondered why she didn't want to eat the burger we would have discovered that and fixed the problem and she would have eaten her meal without any problem.

Now some people would say she shouldn't have reacted so strongly to such a small problem, but the reason the reaction was so strong was because their was no understanding. If we had inserted just a small does of understanding she probably wouldn't have thrown a fit in the first place.

My point, and I hope I have communicated it clearly, is that everyone should practice giving out more compassion and less advice. Even though it may seem (and it may really be true) that someone shouldn't complain about washing out poopy outfits, because in the grand scheme of things it's not really a horrible problem, it did make that person upset and compassion should be exercised. The best and sometimes only way for a person to be happy is for them to feel like they aren't crazy for having the feelings they have and then they will be free to try and improve their attitude towards their own personal trials.

Everybody struggles with different things. No one person's struggles corner the market on suffering. If money brought happiness than no movie stars would commit suicide or suffer from depression. Indeed some peoples struggles do take precedence over others, but that doesn't mean you should eliminate all compassion for anyone except those in dire need. I think the answer is to give higher percentages of compassion to those who are struggling to provide for their basic needs. Then give lower percentages of compassion (but still a percentage) to those who are struggling with less pressing issues.