What if I Get It Wrong?: Mistakes and Compassion

Most of us, these days, know at least one person who is going through a really rough time. Whether that’s health-wise, or financial, or even the accumulation of the stress and exhaustion of holding it all together all the time, things are rough. When we see that pain, of course we want to help, but when it gets severe enough, I think a lot of us wonder the same thing. What if I make it worse?

I don’t want to bring up the death in the family if it’s going to remind that person of their pain. I don’t want to insult someone by offering money when it will be seen as charity. I don’t want to say, “I’m here for you,” when by all accounts, I am there as much as I can be but really, I’ve got a lot going on and maybe I left my phone in the other room and so I missed the call and then they feel betrayed because I wasn’t really there for them. (Maybe that last one is just me.)

I have a tendency to look before I leap, especially when it comes to compassion. I like to think that’s a good thing, but more than once, I’ve been in a conversation with someone, casually asking them about their lives, only to have the warning bells go off in my head that they’re getting into pretty heavy stuff and I’m not really equipped to respond to that and, and, and…I end up saying something really dumb and feeling like an idiot.

Here’s the ugly truth. When we try to practice compassion consistently, we are going to screw up at some point. It’s just a numbers game. We can’t always get it right. But here’s the fun part of compassion in community: you will absolutely get it wrong and you will absolutely be forgiven if you apologize and try to do better. The point of all these values up to now has been making sure that you have a strong foundation of friendship that can withstand mistakes, even big ones.

With faith in the strength of our friendships, with a track record of working at generosity, vulnerability, and appreciating differences, our compassion won’t be taken as pity and our mistakes won’t be taken as disinterested neglect. So we can step out there and try without worrying. We can ignore our own self-consciousness and start moving into doing what needs to be done.

How can you practice compassion today? Who can you reach out to?