We are interdependent beings, inseparable from the suffering of others.  The challenges you face in life, although perhaps different in hue or intensity from another, makes you no better or different than someone whose problem you find deplorable.

You and the drug addict are the same.  You and the woman abused who stays are the same.  You and the liar are the same.  All are labored with a cross to bear and a problem to transcend. This, for certain, is an intimate part of living.  And when the quality of life for another is disturbed, make no mistake that we are all impacted one way or another.  

The child down the street whose family can’t seem to get his temper in check - that you and no one around you wants to get involved with - grows up to be a maladjusted adult who can’t handle the disappointment of being fired and flies a plane into a building that kills himself and someone you love working in that building.  We are interdependent beings, inseparable from the suffering of others.  And  yet, we don’t want to be, anymore.

The buddha said, compassion is that which makes the heart of the good move at the pain of others.  What is your compassion IQ?  Have you made it easy and comfortable for those in your life to feel connected to you in love and safe to share whatever they’re going through? It’s not sexy that in modern lifestyle people are more likely to confide in a virtual stranger than those they count among friends.  Absent is the culture of our ancestors when the feeling of rapport, intimacy and support helped to establish intentional community.

In this modern environment of rigorous independence, we commune less and fail to galvanize community around those who need it most.  People instead spend far too much time talking to others about what they perceive to be someone else’s problem. Generally the gossip is about someone they profess to care about.  

You don’t have to understand or approve of the choices the people in your life make.  All you are tasked with is to love them, unconditionally.  If your ability to love is based on whether or not you can accept the illogical place a loved one’s life may be temporarily arrested, then your compassion currency is worthless.

You’ve got to vibrate, higher.

The opportunity to help, heal and love lies in the soul of every problem.  Embrace it. Engage compassion. Make it safe to share again by restoring the culture of community.  Don’t exile those you love by judging them.  You are your brother and his keeper.