Sympathise with others

Her little girl was late arriving home from school so the mother began to scold her daughter. In the middle of her admonishing she stopped and asked, “Why are you so late?” “I had to help another girl.

She was in trouble,” replied the daughter most sincerely. “What did you do to help her?” the mother snapped irritably. “Oh, I sat down and helped her cry!”

Often times, rendering concrete help to those around us who need our support may be beyond our immediate reach. We might lack the required resources to mitigate their loss. We could be helpless and indisposed ourselves in rolling up our sleeves in action to alleviate their misery. It is here that ‘sympathy’ comes to our aid. By showing our sympathies we bring comfort to the sufferers. What we might lack in material and physical dispositions in helping others can thus be compensated by our sympathetic approach.
The emerging of mankind from the savage state of our forefathers was made possible by this noble quality to feel for others.

Civilisations evolved with the sympathy of one man towards another. Brutal wars and devastating battles found their peaceful ends by the spark of sympathy that was lit by those who had the spirit to sympathise.

It was with sympathy that the iron gate of brutality was locked paving the way for peaceful co-existence. Survival of the fittest gave way to live and let live through the virtue of sympathy.

It is rightly said that, “Next to love, sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart.”
If a man can sympathise with another, he is indeed the richest man in the world, however poor he might be. For the poorest man in all the universe is he who has lost his ability to feel for others.

Yet, “in a highly civilised society, we are more and more in danger of losing our sympathies,” said the American Rabbi, Samuel Schulman.

His words cannot be more relevant to contemporary times. Divided by religion, class and creed, man is losing his innate quality to feel and care for his brethren. Selfishness, greed, extravagance and cruelty clog universal sympathy and camaraderie.

However, imbibing and nurturing ourselves in feeling for others will put us among the ennobled few who could show sympathy freely and earnestly, as this event in the reign of Queen Victoria reveals.

When Queen Victoria heard that the wife of a common labourer had lost her baby, she felt moved to express her sympathy.

She called on the bereaved woman and spent some time with her. After the queen left, the neighbours asked what the queen had said. “Nothing,” replied the grieving mother. “She simply put her hands on mine and we silently wept together.”