“What is this thing called love” the old song goes. The answer to that age-old question can, of course, fill volumes. Love is many things with many flavors.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about compassion – one of those flavors. My favorite definition is, “a deep awareness of and sympathy for another’s suffering”. Most dictionaries leave out the words “deep awareness”, but I think that’s really it in a nutshell. If we have that deep awareness of others, if we get our minds and thoughts off of ourselves and on to others, we’re compassionate.

Our actions follow our thoughts. I want to be more compassionate in life and so I simply must become more aware – more aware of my surroundings and balance that out with my inner focus.

I’m a driven man these days trying to make Watchfire Music into a successful entity and so I often become a bit myopic in my daily doings.  I live, breathe and eat my work and, if I’m not careful, I can get so focused on the one, that I forget the other.

The term “head strong” comes to mind.  Too strong inside the head, too self-centered, too singular in purpose to the elimination of others.

One of my favorite humans, a man whose brilliance superceded his grasp of physics, is Albert Einstein. I’m not sure I really understand the things he discovered about the inner workings of matter, but I pay a lot of attention to the things he said about life. His wisdom was not restricted to the workings of our physical universe.

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” – Albert Einstein

It seems to me that if the above were the one bit of wisdom that he left us with in life, that might be enough.

Here I turn to those wiser than I for help in sharing these discoveries, these deep thoughts, these humble searchings.

“You know, there’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us – the child who’s hungry, the steelworker who’s been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this – when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers – it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help.” – Barack Obama

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of these.” – George Washington Carver

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy,  practice compassion.” – The Dalai Lama

And finally…

“Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back.” – Arthur Rubinstein