Having A Compassionate Heart Sucks

I feel your pain, OP. In addition, I have become a little gun-shy because I have been recovering from a relationship where someone took all I had and drained me dry for around 8 months. It's been around 4 months and I am still recovering, but I feel myself coming back to me a little bit every day. Learning to say no to people on occasion and take time for myself has been hard. I tend to be attracted to the bird with a broken wing-type deal. It started as wanting to help, and then grew into something more. But me taking care of him was prevalent throughout. he tried to help me a little bit, too, but in the end, he was an empty vessel with a hole in the bottom. Learning to take care of myself again after we broke up was hard.

Yes, being compassionate sucks. Do it anyway, but put up boundaries and know when to save yourself from people that will take everything you have to give. And try not to let the day-to-day and the "I want to save them all" swallow you up. The world can be a very dark place sometimes, but if we get overwhelmed, we're not going to be doing anyone any good.

This is the best song I have found to illustrate how I feel in relation to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvbwia6OOkU
I find it very cathartic.

 

life's a bitch and then you die ..

 

I made it a sport to limit my responsibities regarding other people, yet I do not feel (and am sure I'm not) less compassionate because of it

 

and then.....eternal life for the righteous!

 

Compassion comes in many forms.

First and foremost I believe we must have compassion for ourselves. This I have found to be far harder than compassion for those I love, or even complete strangers. Without compassion for ourselves, our ability to spread it to others diminishes. One of the most painful lessons in my life thus far has been learning to recognise that certain people in my life will never behave in a way that's not destructive both to themselves and to those around them, myself included. I'm not even sure that's a lesson that fully sticks, it's something I need to remind myself of on a regular enough basis. I find it difficult to ascertain if and when I need to pull away from someone, but as the years roll by I find I am slowly getting better at it. Sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do for someone is to let them learn the hard way, or recognise they never will and love them anyway. I used to pour myself into others that needed help like an endless pitcher of compassion, but of course it had an end and I would end up an exhausted mess when my energy gave out. Those lessons cost me a decade of blood and treasure, but I did and am still learning from it. I am still that same compassionate person, with that same pitcher, with its same volume, but as I grow older I find that I am learning how best to pour it, so that same amount of compassion does a hell of a lot more for me and those around me.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyVuwEqdyZU

 

What if you're kind just because your nature is to be kind?

 

Well, it's certainly not a possibility to be dismissed out of hand. Perhaps I ought to be kinder to myself...

 

Never give advice unless it's wanted. If you give it when not asked for you look pushy even though your trying to help.

 

Yea I try not to give advice when its not wanted. I'm a very compassionate person myself. I love letting people pass me on the freeway, holding doors for people, picking up stuff people dropped, tracking lost wallets to their owners, complimenting people, inviting people into my home, giving friends stuff. But what I discovered maybe, a year and a half ago, is that most of those "friends" I was helping were just using me ; ( to get their drugs or just to be freeloaders. It pained me so bad when I discovered one "friend" I let in my home stole my last $20 that was for food as I went to the bathroom. Another time when I was in her apartment she started accusing me of stealing her pills and miscellaneous crap like shavers, shampoo, etc. Incredible! These were the type of people I was giving my love, trust, sympathy, time and all that to?? It just deepened my depression but I have learned to choose friends much much much more wisely. I have also picked up a kinda sarcastic humor so that when people try being mean it don't bother me so much no mo!

 

I feel like true compassion is a rarity. To help others without pushing your own ideals and beliefs and expecting nothing in return, doesn't happen very often in my opinion.

 

The thing about people like you that worries me is how sincere you are in your attempts at helping people. From my observations people who try to help others often times end up being belittling in doing so, as if their way is the only right way and if the person they're helping doesn't do it in this way they are less than for whatever reason. Then these people who make it their mission to help someone go on to say things like, "They are people that are 'too far gone to be helped', people who 'can't help themselves'.", if things don't go their way. There are these stories of someone saying, "I was trying to be nice to them and look at how they repaid me." Or when everything has been said and done between the two parties, the person who was trying to help goes on this epiphany of how the person they were trying to help made them forget about themselves and now that the person that they were trying to help is gone, this person can go back to focusing on themselves. It's just all so self-righteous, selfish, mean, condescending, judgmental, etc. And I'm sure the person that was trying to be helped wasn't easy for the person trying to help either.

I know it happens sometimes. Sometimes someone can help someone else. But, I think mostly we can only help others by doing tangible things for each other, like holding doors, etc. Emotionally helping someone... we would have to be truly compassionate and i don't think a lot of people hold that virtue. They say they do, but when they're put in the situation they're like all the rest.

If you truly are a compassionate person, then congrats. That's truly a unique trait in a human. But, if you're not... that's fine too. A lot of people aren't.

 

^^^^

Exactly, if they are running around telling people how awesomely compassionate they, 10 times out of 10 they are just self important.

OP said, ' What really hurts is when they dont listen' you dont say shit like that if you are truly selfless