Compassion I
To be Compassionate
Do to others what you would have them do to you - Jesus Christ (Matthew 7:12)
Sixteen year old Evan shot a student, a principal, and left many wounded.
All because he was tired of being teased and that no one offered help.
Where is the sense of righteousness and compassion in the hearts of people?
Buried deep under the reality of modern society, perhaps…
Compassion is often described as the strong feeling to help dispel another’s pain or troubles. The principle of selfless concern for the well-being of others, this virtue is ranked as a major religious tradition in numerous philosophies.
Such definitions are so common, so ordinary that people rarely stop and spare the word a second glance.
Defining compassion, is there really a concrete and standard meaning to it?
The problem that incurs nowadays is the fact that compassion has rarely been successfully implemented into the student’s mind and taken too lightly. This not only affects the way students take the seriousness of school bullying in the campus, but also the case of animal cruelty.
Perhaps unknown to many, bullying actually causes harmful social and emotional development.In the short-term victims suffers from inferiority complexes, grades slipping, lesser friends and even school attendance problems. These problems may even stay permanent.
And what about the percentage of people willing to show consideration and empathy to those who are less fortunate? The orphans? Or the physically/mentally disabled individuals? Are we showing them enough compassion?
To make long story short, compassion is undermined, underestimated, and undeniably belittled.
If no one takes the first step, no one chooses to take and initiative, nothing can be accomplished.
“Everything is connected... no one thing can change by itself.” - Paul Hawken
Venturing In-Depth
An estimation of 30 percent of teens – approximately over 5.7milllion – in the United States are involved in cases of bullying, whether is it the bully, the victim, or both.
A recent national survey on students of grade 6 to 10 revealed that 13 percent of the claiming figures reported to have committed acts of bullying, 11 percent being bullied victims and 6 percent that they had bullied others, as well as being the victims of bullying.
Based on limited data statistics, bullying cases are more likely to occur amongst younger teens compared to older teens. Cases of bullying often frequent among boys compared girls.
Teenage girls are more prone to being bullied in the form of rumors and sexual comments. While teenage boys target both genders, teenage girls most often bully other girls, using more subtle and indirect forms of aggression than boys.
For instance, rather than physically harming others, they are more prone to spread gossips or encourage others to reject or exclude another girl.
(Reference from http://www.familyfirstaid.org/bullying.html & http://law.jrank.org/pages/12096/School-Violence-Bullying.html)
The Consequences of a Mindless Act
As a result of the lack of compassion from the student body in schools, bullied victims often go through excruciatingly insufferable solidarity without friends and become targets of constant teasing and taunting.
Victims with stronger wills are able to endure through the entire high school experience, while the weaker-minded ones are left traumatized and some resort to self-infliction of hurt, suicide or even campus shootouts.
Lack of compassion of the third parties (students) also leads to the succession in bullying of weaker students. Because they do not feel for the victims, they do not stand out to help or report the matter.
Youths troubled by bullying can resort to revenge that could involve violence.
The physically/mentally handicapped are also often ostracized in this cruel society. Apparently, they are often seen as less superior to us normal beings. But really, are we the ones dominant, or are they the ones more strong?
Despite the obstacles faced, they never seem to waver. They struggle to go through normally like us and achieve something that is served to us on a silver platter.
And yet, not many people can see through the surface and some even cross the boundaries by making a mockery of their misery, make them feel inferior, withdrawn, and ultimately, suicidal.