Compassion is prepared to meet others wherever they are, recognizing that the circumstance or challenge they now face is as much a part of their life as any other part of their life. Compassion can laugh or cry, joke or commiserate, be curious and inquisitive, chatty or silent. Compassion is not afraid to be fully present, hopeful, or lighthearted. Compassion does not turn away. It is never afraid to see beauty or find humor or share a fractured heart.
Compassion contains no pity because it does not judge one circumstance of life as better as or worse than the next. For it comes from a place in which all things are from G‑d's hand, presented to us to be lived to its completion.
Compassion is not constricted by "rules" because it recognizes the uniqueness of each instant and each person. As compassion opens the door to visit the sick, it has no idea what lies ahead and so is prepared for spontaneity, for the unexpected — whether from the patient or from itself.
Compassion creates its own result. As it interacts with the other, a new thing happens, because compassion is prepared to yield to whatever happens next, always with the other in mind.
- Jay Litvin https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/160887/jewish/Compassion.htm
I have always loved the idea that people believe me to be compassionate and generous but it's only after reading the passage above I have discovered that what my idea of compassion was until now was quite warped. I had blended it with the Hindu philosophy of karma and come up with my own version of, "If I do good to others then others will do good to me." And when the good did not beget good, I spiralled down the abyss of depression and self-loathing. "I had not done enough." Now, I realise that if you're looking for outcomes, it's not compassion.
