Compassion is an altruistic human emotion, allowing those with it the ability to feel another person’s suffering as if it was their own. This does not mean self-sacrificial tendencies must follow but that greater good will come from an important human emotion born from natural, social experiences.

Unfortunately, business culture more often than not fails to see it this way. A business decision in modern society generally means a decision made for the greater good of the company but at the expense of the community. These decisions are short-sighted and do not always give the company a competitive edge.

Are your beliefs shaped by your experience or do you experience what you believe?
Your answer may depend on whether you live your life defensively or proactively. Defensive attitudes around your beliefs mean that your experience shapes your beliefs. In your life, you’ve experienced X,Y, or Z and you’ve come to believe certain things as a result of those experiences. The end result is one in which we have to constantly defend our positions regarding X,Y, or Z and our beliefs therefore reflect a fundamental limitation in our thinking.

1. Unplug Your Television
Television has more of a disruptive influence on our lives and does more to affect our sanity than most other modern appliances. Since it was invented in the early 20th century, TV has slowly become an integral part of our daily lives and today influences how we think act and behave as individuals and as a society. Far from being an entertainment device, modern day television has become more of a platform for delivering incessant advertising messages, political propaganda and mind-numbing reality shows with little redeeming values.

It is easy to misunderstand yourself and others and often difficult to move beyond that misunderstanding to universally accepting things as they are.

The world is full of suffering. Holding on to hurt and our own suffering guarantees a world of continuing pain, dysfunction, disconnection, failure, and misery. The key to conquering this negativity is to develop compassion and mercy in our lives and to apply those virtues as tools in our dealings with others. It begins with simple acts of forgiveness and an expectation of compassion.

Compassion is a human emotion that is experienced by perceived pain and suffering in others. Etymologically, the word compassion means to suffer together with. Compassion often involves an active desire to alleviate another’s suffering. Various cultures and spiritual traditions around the world have recognized the value of compassion within the individual as a key component to spiritual maturity.