Hello and thank you for your interest. I hope to engage you in, what may be for some, a life-altering paradigm shift in your thought process. During your journey of reading and hopefully posting thought-provoking responses, I want you to always bear in mind the underlying intent of this blog, which is as follows:
Sympathy and compassion are as different from one another as day is from night and the oft-quoted maxim attributed to Dr. Samuel Johnson, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions".
As Christ "had compassion in bowels" (3Nephi 17:6) so should we. The plight of the unfortunate should not be ignored, neither perpetuated, but eradicated. So, how? How does one eradicate misfortune?
Simply put, through "...love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance..." (Galatians 5:22).
Impulsive, feel-good, one-shot, actions do nothing to solve the problem and only provide giver with a means to assuage a guilty conscience and the receiver to receive a short-term infusion of whatever it is, food, cash, love, attention, ... what have you.
The motivations of sympathy are first and foremost, self-centered, "Ohhhh I feel so-o-o-o-o bad for you (notice this has nothing to do with the recipient's actual state of being, the giver simply "feels" bad).
Prideful
Condescending
Enabling
Demeaning
Arrogant
In the extreme, I have seen this "sympathy" destroy lives because of misguided actions. I think back to an experience where a friend of mine was so consumed with sympathy that he actually stole his brother's wife because "he would be able to treat her much better than his brother". As a little background, he deemed her to be psychologically damaged and in need of his "superior" psychological insights. He treated her like a second-class citizen who owed him everything. Doing nothing to resolve the underlying issue, he merely ended up holding it over her head any time they had a disagreement. We have since gone our seperate ways in life, and I don't know the final result of it all, but outside of extreme changes of heart can any possible happy ending be seen?
Did my friend do anything to help his brother recognize his inappropriate behavior? Did he treat any of the parties with respect? Did he show any loyalty or respect for anyone other than himself? This, Dear Reader, is the epitome of immature unrestrained sympathy run amuck.
In contrast, how would compassion have manifested itself in this situation? I feel I am but restating the obvious in answering this seemingly rhetorical question, but be that as it may, my friend would've realized that there are at least 3 principles in this equation, and not just one. He would've reached out to his brother and used his "superior psychological abilities" constructively to mentor and guide as the occasion allowed itself. He could've thought of his brother's relationship and honored it despite the chemicals and hormones going off. He could've considered in his calculus that here stood not two people who needed his divine intervention to cure all their ills as he deigned to intervene, but as a couple who needed the soothing words of a compassionate soul.
So, in closing I unequivocally state that "sympathy" is the greatest evil.
Until next time, Dave
-The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
