Compassion

I’ve worked with teenagers my entire professional life. And because I’ve gotten so used to my routine, I often forget that while I can teach the same subject over and over, it’s the first time my students take it. I also sometimes take for granted that there are some experiences that I count on as certainties in life that my students have come across for the first time.  It is in these moments that I have to get a hold of myself and remind myself that some things first need to be felt before they can ever be understood.

When I was a very young teacher and would see students cry, my first instinct was always to find a way to make them deal with their sorrows by saying, “It’s okay. It’s not that bad,” or to find a way to make them laugh or forget about their initial reaction. I have found that this is not the wisest choice. True, it helps relieve the tension but it doesn’t really help a teenager grow into a functional, well-adjusted adult.

In moments of distress or shock or loss, people don’t generally need to hear what they can learn from the event or how it won’t matter in the next few days. What people need is to be reassured that it’s alright to feel sad, to cry in anguish, to let the whole gamut of human emotions wash over us before trying to process every single thought or feeling. In other words, people, especially teenagers, need to know that it’s alright to be human. 

In a world where social media enables us to curate the lives we want to project to the world, we don’t always get to see just how vulnerable people can be. There are a lot of articles and information out there about depression and how one should seek help for mental illness. But that’s an extreme. What about the daily pains that come simply with being human? The moments in our lives that aren’t necessarily Instagrammable – losing a game for example, or getting a low grade, or seeing a crush talk to someone else. To an adult these might seem inconsequential next to the piles of bills, marital issues and difficult bosses. But to a teenager who is just learning to navigate the world, they can be quite devastating.

My students have taught me that compassion is not always about being around to fix someone else’s problem (although that is still a noble endeavor), nor is it about being around to make someone laugh through their tears (although that can be very helpful, too). Sometimes, compassion is simply being around. As if our very presence could give someone permission to be vulnerable… to be human… to just be.  

That is, after all, where the word came from: com + passion – to suffer with.