The Mindset of a Refugee: Understanding the Human Potential for Current and Former Refugees to Change Our Planet by Joseph Minani

Author:Joseph Minani [Minani, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781641379472
Google: y_6gzQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 55074075
Publisher: New Degree Press
Published: 2020-07-27T11:14:42+00:00

Compassion

“No matter who we are, no matter how successful, no matter what our situation, compassion is something we all need to receive and give.”

—Catherine Pulsifer

Compassion is a multi-textured response to other’s pain, sorrow, and suffering. In other words, compassion includes kindness, empathy, generosity, and acceptance. Refugees are people of compassion like you and me. However, most of us are not as compassionate as the people who have witnessed life’s atrocities. Their compassion is at a higher level. Compassion is not found while lying on a comfortable couch and thinking about how many more comfortable couches could fit in your living room. A mother watching her cold and starving kid suffer is more likely to surface her compassion. In addition, compassion entails courage, tolerance, and calmness—all of which are equally woven into the fabric of compassion. Above all, compassion is the capacity to be open to the reality of suffering and to aspire for its healing.55 Some of us do not exercise our compassion as frequently as people who must confront the evil in our world.

A soldier who witnessed extreme poverty might be more willing to feed the homeless with no strings attached. They would do it not to make themselves feel good or to get a reward of some sort, but just because it is the right thing to do. Refugees find themselves in various situations where they are faced with the suffering of others and are therefore invaded by compassion.

You are probably compassionate at times like when your sibling is sick, your best friend gets in an accident, or your loved one gets sentenced many years in prison. So, we are all capable of being compassionate. The media has adulterated compassion by deluging such compassion with pity. Pity makes one react not act. Pity allows you to change the channel and go about your day, adding what you had just saw on the long list of everything wrong in this world. It is compassion that surpasses pity and permits people to act, to act as humanly as possible. The reason is that compassion is human nature; it is an inherent human quality. However, not everyone can easily activate it because it is often confused with pity.56 If there is one thing that the world needs now more than ever, it is compassion. Compassion is a natural result that rises from paying attention, and it is through this way of thinking that we can cultivate compassion. Compassion is a combination of feelings and emotions that we all experience in our lives.

Author, Journalist, and Philosopher, Robert Wright said:

If there’s one thing I can encourage everyone to do, politicians, religious leaders, and us, it would be what I call “expanding the moral imagination”—that is to say, your ability to put yourself in the shoes of people in very different circumstances. This is not the same as compassion, but it is conducive to compassion. It opens the channels for compassion. And I am afraid we have another good news/bad news story, which is that the moral imagination is part of human nature.

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