Compassion is Enough.

“Look for a way to lift someone up. And if that’s all you do, that’s enough.” - E.Lesser

Today, I went with my daughter to an Arts & Crafts store to buy some fleece for one of her project works. We struck into a friendly conversation with Tina (not real name), who was helping us cut the cloth. By the time, we left her counter, we were laughing and felt a genuine connection. When we arrived at the payment counter, the lady there asked, "who folded the fleece for you?". When we said it was Tina, she seemed surprised. It seems, it had been a trouble for her to have Tina fold the clothes nicely when she send them over to the payment counter adding to the workload for her. This may be a pure co-incidence. However, it felt likely that Tina was happy with our brief interaction and through that process ended up being more productive than usual?

Compassion doesn't require us to do things differently, or act in a special way. But, just to realize that we are human beings first. Hence, instead of leading with a "role-to-role transactions", let us try to lead with "human-to-human interactions". In both cases, we will achieve desired outcome - I leave it to you to imagine, which of these outcome will feel more rewarding and lasting at a personal level?

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful to all my colleagues and all professionals who have shown compassion to me and brought it to their workplaces.