Caring and Compassion

Right now the slate is about as clean as it can get. I’ve got 3 ½ months to myself (well, not exactly, but no 9 to 5) with the same level as pay that I’ve had for most of the past year. I’ll take it. It’s a great starting point. Without lifting a finger I could extend this another 5 months at about 60% of that income level, which is not bad either. Though am determined to do much better than this.

But my intention is clear: this is permanent. I have put myself in the driver’s seat, kicked out the co-pilot chair, and I have taken control. Full control. It’s up to me.

It’s as easy or as difficult as I make it. And I can tell I’m making it easy. It’s easy because there is no alternative. Of course, there never really was. We are always in the driver’s seat in life, it’s just a question of to what degree we accept this.

I’ve done a lot of preparation to prepare myself for this. I’ve explored a pile of ideas over the past months at a depth that I have never tried before. I’ve explored business ideas, personal projects with no obvious source of income but plenty of potential for fun. I’ve explored personal development with an openness that I never realized I was capable of, and I’ve opened up all kinds of connections that I knew where there and possible, but that I have shied unnecessarily away from for a long time. It’s refreshing, and it is only the beginning.

I’ve chosen to label this blog as ‘Caring and Compassion’ owing to some fresh input I sought and received, and which I’ve chosen to accept. This is one of the ways I’m accepting it.

It is a pretty challenging tag to start out from, because it really is the first time I’ve consciously set out to take this particular approach

It’s the frame around which I am putting any and every issue I choose to tackle in to. It implies taking a degree of responsibility, not just putting information out there, talking for the sake of talking (or writing for the sake of writing), but actually consciously framing issues in the way I believe is most meaningful.

It’s not about assigning blame, pointing fingers, or preaching. It is, in short, the most personal approach to tackling issues, as I see it. It’s taking responsibility for what I choose to create and experience.

The thinking goes like this:

If you are able to accept that you are responsible for what you create and experience, then why wouldn’t you want to be deeply caring and compassionate in creating these experiences and experiencing them?

This is really something that has taken me quite some time to understand.

When the challenge of trying to view my life through the lens of caring and compassion was placed in front of me, I was taken somewhat aback. First of all, I couldn’t help but think in terms of charity. And charity, I must admit, is something that I’ve never been terribly good at because I’ve always felt that I was giving to much of my potential power away by thinking in strictly charitable terms.

Because charity can be both empowering and disempowering, depending upon how it is conducted. Oftentimes, it is disempowering. It goes back to the old adage, ‘give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he will be able to feed himself for the rest of his life’. The second idea resonates with caring and compassion, the first doesn’t quite cut it for me.

It has consequently taken me a while to realign the idea of caring and compassion as the central aspect of my existence, knowing that it couldn’t simply mean charity in the sense I couldn’t relate to. And it finally dawned on me how to do this.

Caring and compassion is simply a way of creating your experiences. It is a way of choosing what you attract in your life. To do this in a caring and compassionate manner has nothing to do with charity, or giving away your power or asking other people to give away theirs.

Instead, it has to do with the way you present yourself to the world, and the way the world presents itself to you. For me, it’s quite a revelation. I simply can’t imagine anything more desirable that resonating with caring and compassion in this manner. Nothing could be more empowing.