Smart Pity

Transcript

I was thinking today about smart pity.

So my buddy was telling me a story about driving the the car with somebody and they pointed at a bunch of apartments and they said “you know I can’t help but feel sorry for those people living in those tiny apartments.”

And my buddy said “Hmm, that’s funny. You know some of the best times of times of my life were living in a little apartment in Condesa in Mexico City.

And it’s funny, when you express pity for someone like that you can put a mask over it and actually say it’s compassion.

But it doesn’t get that far. Real empathy of course would be saying “I wonder what it’s like for people in those apartments? What the good and bad aspects of their life are? What they enjoy about their life….

But for other people they say “Well my priority is having space so if people don’t have that they must be miserable.”

Another perspective is when you do this if a person expresses pity in that way they’re actually using another person. It’s a kind of objectification.

I’m going to push my self up while pushing others down. Others must be so miserable and so I can feel good about myself. It’s a little trick to feeling superior and it’s funny because it doesn’t matter what stage of life you are you can always find a way to feel superior if you want to.

There’s a story about a fellow, I think he was Irish, and he went to the temple Wat Tham Krabok in Thailand and he had been an alcoholic for years.

At some stages of his life he had nothing to his name, nothing to show.

But sitting in a gutter he could still look at others and say “I feel sorry for that guy going to work every day. He’s not true to himself. He’s not me.”

And then of course taking “yadat” – the cutting medicine and vomiting his little guts out he quickly realized “Hang on, I’m not better or worse than anyone else. I just am.”

My friend Khari is deaf and once we were standing outside a casino and this British fellow saw us signing to each other and he came up and started talking.

Typical British fashion he must have apologized like 10 or 20 times during that conversation.

“I’m so sorry that you’re deaf” and he was telling this story how he was in love with this deaf woman in his home town and other things like how sweet she was.

And this guy, sweet British guy, pure intentions and pure heart but the way he was expressing himself by saying “I’m sorry for your condition” can actually put people in an uncomfortable position.

And you feel pity for somebody in the wrong way like that.

Khari said to me once “It’s so funny people say to me they are sorry for what I am.”

It might occur to the rest of us but deaf people have their own community. Their own culture. Of course they have in each country or region in their own language.

Some are even proud of it, they enjoy what they are.

Khari said to me once “People say that to me. They say their sorry. I don’t want their pity. That’s why I like playing poker cause nobody cares about what I am. Nobody cares about my condition, they just want to take my money.”

Which is so funny to me cause you would think that trying to take someones money would be dehumanizing. Actually seeing them as an equal, as a competitor just like everyone else is much more humanizing than objectifying by giving somebody pity.

It’s interesting.

Sometimes I see people on Facebook and they post things like “I have more fun than you. My friends and I have more fun than you” and they post their photos at a party or nightclub.

Sometimes when I see that I wonder about that person because that’s the kind of thing you post when you’re not happy or not having fun.

There’s a key lesson, you do not need to dump on other people to feel good about yourself.

You can feel good about yourself, feel good about the things you have, feel grateful for the things you have without looking at them and being like “I’m better than them because I have something that they don’t.”

Happiness is it’s own reward, happiness speaks for itself and it needs no justification.

It needs no reason. It needs no ego construct.

Happiness is yours. So exercise smart pity, look at your own ego constructs and look at how you can be happy of itself.

When you do pity someone you don’t need to show it off like a badge. If you feel pity for someone then you can do something wonderful and act on it to help them and improve their lives.

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for thinking beautifully. Thank you for being discerning in your own life and actions and trying to place yourself humbly at the same level as other people so you can enjoy their company, purely

Have a great day, I’ll talk to you soon.