Read about the work of Daryl Davis here.

I can get really worked up about current events. No matter your political persuasion, there are media outlets that know how to rile you up with clickbait headlines. As we idly scroll through our news feeds, when we should probably be paying more attention to our loved ones, we see one article after another that feeds our discontent. These headlines often make us see others as the enemy or perhaps as less than human. No matter how angry I get, I keep coming back to the age-old rule: compassion conquers all.

Suck an Egg! I’m Not Going to Show Compassion!

Can we start with a simple premise? The vilest white supremacist or the evilest social justice warrior, they both want the same thing: they want the world to be a better place. They also want to be happy. They have vastly different views of the world, and both engage in practices that alienate the other side and make it hard for others to join their side.

You might construe this as “both sidism,” but I’m not saying both sides are exactly the same. All sides are always different, but there are commonalities. And, if finding common ground to bring about peaceful solutions is to be dismissed as “both sidism,” then we have a long way to go as a society.

You Get More Done with Compassion than Poo

It is satisfying flinging poo, isn’t it? It feels good to have clear ideas of good and bad and to act on them. Of course, though we fool ourselves into thinking otherwise, no one is all good. No one is all bad. We want to dismiss people as all bad, but that is the lazy route. It takes work to understand others and show compassion. Being compassionate does not mean that you have to agree with others or think they are right by any stretch of the imagination. It does mean you have to take the time to understand their position. And, if you want to win them over, you might also want to avoid getting preachy.

Time and again, I’ve found that compassion does a lot more to change someone’s mind than berating, insulting, and attacking them. This may feel good in the short term, but you are turning yourself into a hateful person.

If you are interested in learning about the effectiveness of compassion, let me recommend three books for you:

Only the first one is specifically focused on compassion. The other two are from vastly different fields, but they both include the wisdom that you are more likely to win people to your way of thinking through compassion. Oh yeah, and it has the added side effect of making the world a better place. After all, that’s what we all want anyway, right?

Do I need to suck an egg? Please tell me in the comments below.