"An enemy is a person whose story you don't know." ~ Irene Butter
We all know the status of our currently hostile nation – it feels like you can't make it through a single speech or read an article or have a conversation with friends that doesn't relate to polarizing issues or divisions Politics. The focus is on our differences instead of our common humanity.
It is too easy to blame other people, other groups and other political parties for the endless unrest in our world – civil wars, famines, natural disasters, school shootings, homelessness, environmental degradation – just as it is easy to blame others who play a role in our personal stories of failed relationships, unsatisfactory work, and family stress.
Suffice it to say that compassion is almost gone and the golden rule that we were taught as innocently as children feel like they died together with their childhood.
I could easily turn this into a narrative about that person, group, or organization that is causing the "problem". But I'll let you know the secret of this post in advance … spoiler alert, they're not the problem, that's me. Whoever or whatever I blame is not the real cause of the problem, I AM … and so are you.
I hope that in the end a small part of what I say will reach you as a means of healing and not as another prescription for guilt and shame.
I wish I could tell you that radical compassion was easy for me. I wish I could tell you that I found out everything, that I am enlightened, that I make biscuits for every stranger I meet, and give out hugs and coupons to a new restaurant. I wish I could give you a secret formula for complete peace and joy in your life so that even radical compassion can consume you.
But honestly, the formula doesn't exist and I wouldn't trust anyone (including myself) who has ever tried to feed me one. However, this does not mean that there are not very real, very tangible things that we can do to get closer to a life full of joy in the midst of chaos.
I do not believe that pure joy and bliss are endpoints – things that must be “achieved” or “achieved”. Instead, I see joy and peace as a continuum that you can actually work on to improve and find more balance in your life – as opposed to the stress, anxiety, anger, frustration, and resentment that consume so much of our days.
The storms of life will never stop coming towards us. We cannot stop them or reduce their strikes. But we have the power to control our responses and change how we weather the storms. This is the way to peace.
Let me rewind things for reference. I came from a difficult childhood; I had a twisted relationship with my religion and when I got to college I was destined to prove the opposite to the world, my childhood and my God. I would save the world. I seriously believed it didn't seem to interest anyone in mainstream culture, so it was up to me.
After I graduated, I lived from four to five hours of sleep a night, worked seven days a week, and survived on a liquid diet of coffee, coffee, and another cup of coffee. I was so productive and effective that I actually thought I could save the world.
When I was twenty-three, I was seven digits and ran my own social enterprise that saved the world. I had a nonprofit, a kid on the way, and I advised some of the largest companies in the Midwest – while driving a two-door, uncomfortably light yellow Ford Focus.
Within a year I was physically ill (another spoiler alert – I survived to write this to you) and went broke. All of my businesses have been closed, including my nonprofit. My family was split.
What was the worst thing for the successful 24-year-old hero complex? When I realized that my world was coming to a standstill, the rest of the world went on without me.
What does all this have to do with radical compassion? For me, I had to lose everything to see that I had to change. Only in the humility to lose everything could I deal with a very hard truth of working on social justice: it is physically impossible to maintain long-term external compassion without a stronger, more stable, basic inner compassion. On my journey to save everyone else, I did so at the cost of my own life.
A And here is the obvious disadvantage: you cannot love another person more than yourself. It is impossible and if you try, you will ultimately fail. Without caring for and loving myself, I eventually become a greater burden for those I wanted to help at all.
What does this have to do with our world now? Like the 23-year-old self-proclaimed savior of the world, we have become a selfish, self-worshiping culture that believes it has all the answers and the others don't. We think we are the only ones who care about the world.
What we lack in our current polarized culture is a common humanity. That person you yell at and who has a different political, social, religious, empty mind than you, well, they're people, and you're no better than them.
If you can reveal your own hidden depths and admit that you are not perfect, that you are constantly making countless mistakes, that you are constantly changing and developing your opinions and beliefs, then you will begin to open up more compassion for yourself have yourself.
And if you can start to see yourself as a person who is loved and worthy of grace and compassion – although you are not perfect and do not live up to your own ideals – you can start to see yourself the person "opposes" you with the same grace and compassion that you have for yourself, no matter how different it is or how many mistakes it has made.
Why? Because you can believe that maybe you are just a person for a moment, just like you, who do what they can with what they believe to be true.
My friend Irene Butter, who survived the Holocaust concentration camps, sums up this entire concept perfectly in one sentence: "An enemy is a person whose history you do not know." Daryl Davis, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu , Malala Yousafzai – all people who live their lives through radical compassion share this belief.
Friends, we must seek wisdom from the people who have come before us – people like Irene who have suffered from the worst in human history. We have to hear how they came out on the other side of these horrors that somehow loved their enemies, filled with an unspeakable compassion that cannot hate, and with awe of a burning activism of change that no amount of water can wipe out
When we are ultimately about changing this world, if we believe in ideas like radical compassion, it is time for us to stop looking elsewhere and look inside. It is time for us to become the radical compassion that this world needs so badly. This is only the first step, but my friend, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever your story is, this first step starts with you.
Join me and may we be radical enough to take this first step together.
About Thad Cummings
Thad Cummings is the author of Running from Fear: Going to the desert and finding life again and radical compassion: Undermining a culture of hostility. After spending almost a decade running businesses and nonprofits, he founded Changing Company, where he shares his passion to bring new conversations to the landscape where all voices are heard, barriers are broken and the polarization of our community is reduced , To learn more or to get in touch with Thad, his books, podcasts or workshops, visit: www.ChangingCompany.org
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