Vitamin C(aring)

Aurora Fratila
Apr 11, 2019
2 min read

Updated: Jun 1, 2019

True compassion has nothing to do with how kind someone is towards you. It is based on realizing and accepting that the other one is an important human being, too, and has the right to be happy and overcome suffering, regardless of how they behave. Compassion is not equal to mercy, but it is based on respecting the rights of another human being and on understanding that that individual is just like you.

I always think of happiness as the purpose of our lives, regardless of what other people may say. No, I don’t think that’s impossible, or superficial, or stupid, or naive. We have the right to be happy and we have the right to do what we feel is necessary in order to wake up in the morning with a smile on our face and think: “I love my life. I’m happy. Thank you.”

With hope and a happy feeling, our body feels well. Therefore, hope and happiness are positive factors for our health. Health depends on a happy state of mind.

Anger, on the other hand, is based on a sense of insecurity and brings us fear. When we encounter something good, we feel safe. When something threatens us, we feel insecure and then we become angry. Anger is a part of the mind that defends itself from what harms our survival. But anger itself makes us feel bad and so, ultimately, it is bad for our health.

Compassion gives us inner strength; it gives us self-confidence and that reduces fear, which, in turn, keeps our mind calm.

Modern culture encourages young people to focus on self-interested behaviours and undermines their collective and empathic instincts. We should be encouraged to see each other as a source of support, not a source of threat. But our education system promotes success as being better than others, rather than caring about or helping them.

Teens need help with these things. But instead of being listened to we are being shut out. We are prioritizing and choosing happiness but we are also recognizing that we need guidance: 83% say it’s hard to make the right choices, 64% say they want help. Society denies us space to act on our happiness instincts. Instead of providing us with the structures to develop our own aspirations and skills, the system is creating a culture of performance – “exam factories” in the words of educationalist Sir Anthony Seldon – which more than ever are pressuring young people to be versions of themselves they don’t actually want to be. There are enough pressures to compete. Happiness for teens as we’ll see doesn’t come from competition it comes from collaboration.

"Before we can generate compassion and love, it is important to have a clear understanding of what we understand compassion and love to be. In simple terms, compassion and love can be defined as positive thoughts and feelings that give rise to such essential things in life as hope, courage, determination, and inner strength. In the Buddhist tradition, compassion and love are seen as two aspects of the same thing: Compassion is the wish for another being to be free from suffering; love is wanting them to have happiness."

-The Dalai Lama