06/09/2024
"Lifting the lid on 'the business of compassion' vs 'real compassion"
The business of compassion versus real compassion is a delicate dance to execute. It requires honest, empathetic understanding without condescension albeit a sincere ability to find solutions to help people. However, I'm reminded of a popular phares; God helps those that help themselves. So, I am going to try and frame this writing with practical sensitivity.
Lights flash, cameras roll as the sad look etched across the news anchors face reports the most recent terrorist attack killing serval civilians' and wounding many children. Former president Bill Clinton coined the phrase, " I feel your pain" as he solemnly shook hands with families of deceased victims and embraced the few survivors pulled from the rubble of delipidated buildings in the Oklahoma bombing. The backdrop exposed the sky which housed a fog of dark cloud from the effects of the explosion. The air of sadness was palpable and all the first responders feed into the atmosphere to lend a shoulder for parents of the victims to cry on and save lives. And after the initial chaos had died down, contingency factors started to weigh in like; therapists, medical expenses, funeral arrangements, lawyers, social services, the church and the hospital. Notice all of these entities are labelled or affiliated to the words as "compassionate business" showing a help in hand and protecting the most vulnerable in times of need.
What does this mean to you?
Compassion means not only caring about one another but also acting accordingly. As a manager, the more you nurture those around you and demonstrate compassion and empathy to the teams you manage, the more your employees will want to accomplish for both the team and the organization. However, on the business side of compassion " Money" plays a dominant hand in how compassionate one can be. This is sad but true!
So, for example if you come from the disappearing lower middle class that has merged into economically squeezed demographics. The resources and medical needs from this sector of people has exhausted the financial infrastructure in society. Therefore, the security nest egg we thought would be there for us in a case of emergency acts like the invisible man. Patience runs thin and the language of compassion becomes brittle once that liquid solvency metaphorically dries up.
Whispers catch fire as government entities bemoan the idea of immigrants and refugees. Therefore, the money the workforce contributed to the economic infrastructure isn't available to (us) the contributors. Because these funds need to help Spain acting as the slippery host Samaritan serving the people in need from abroad through no fault of their own. And, the notion that we sit back while social services and the government says, no peudo ayuda para te is total nonsense! And the one's that can see through their hoodwinking lies makes them feel at least very uncomfortable. The embarrassment lies in a total mismanagement of employee's funds invested in for a rainy day and that the government exploitation of it, got drunk on and forgot to pick up the check! Guzzled down on Cava and helping the Royal family with squandering millions of euros. While they play nice to the EU who by the way, paid for the women's shelter, I'm staying in, not Spain. The following information alludes to this.
The Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) has seen a marked increase in the amount of funding available: for 2021-2027, the fund amounts to €9.9 billion, compared to €3.137 billion over the previous 2014-2020 period.
The Un-comfortability factor, is something like mismanaged government entities will have to get used to this, until they stop being caught with their hands in the cookie jar!
Compassion, and the empathetic enablers;
When I was living at the safe house that was run by nuns, they quietly stood by and allowed alcoholics to sooth their emotional wounds with what they called "their baby". And after allowing these painfully addicted souls to numb themselves where they would fall flat on their faces. They would say, "there, there my sweetie", "God loves you" while depositing them with urine smelling attire on the bed. The sisters were well intended people who seriously wanted to be of service. But the MONEY always brought a hopeful twinkle in their eyes as they knew their ineffective service for these souls with dire situations they couldn't save. Their main focus was to not have them die on the street. And, this is where I felt a tremendous conflict with the shelter in Vancouver too.
At the beginning of this year in Barcelona, I saw one of those very sick souls lying face down on the ground completely wasted and out his mind. Two Dutch friends pathetically begging for help. So, I asked a vendor on Las Ramblas to call the ambulance. With gratitude they came, but I saw the writing on the wall. If he didn't get the necessary help and detox, he was going to die which he consequently did on May 21st this year.
Of course, onlookers such as the clergy said "we tried", "but did they?" Unfortunately, I don't think they did. They just merely maintained the status quo. Which in my mind, isn't good enough. This made them look like compassionate service men and women fighting the good fight on behalf of themselves and the establishment, " The Church".
So, this made me question who or what does the business of compassion serve?
The question hit like an exhausting moan observing the last remaining bubbles hovering on the surface of the sea, before the titanic met its death by drowning in its own incapacity to survive. "Look being well intending just doesn't fit the bill anymore". Not after society has allowed necessary funds concerning the needy to languish on the vine, through waste or misdirection until it's really needed.
Vancouver really tested me; I was living in downtown East Van at a woman's shelter where women with substance abuse issues are their real focus. Come to realize, they got a lot of their funding from the state government. Granted these women were treated like special cases. Which I had no problem with however, I was sharing my room with a 70-year-old woman from South Korea who had been an immigrant for a long time and was receiving a pension. Good for her! I had no problem with that either. I was quite helpful to her when I could be, but then she started calling me her mother. Which I hated! I was nobodies' mother except to myself. Anyway, time droned on and she started to depend on me, more and more. Her body wasn't functioning properly and besides that she was extremely manipulative.
I found out she had a son who didn't want to deal with her conniving ways with her drug interests as well as poor capacity to function. Well, the s**t hit the fan when her problems with her knees deteriorated and she was unable to walk.
I asked the staff if they could help me in taking turns to help her go to the toilet. They were nice at first until it took forty-five minutes to take her to the toilet and back to her room. So, the next day when I asked for help. They frankly said " we are not obligated to help her," and that I shouldn't help her either because, I could injure myself. So, I argued that she can't just lie in the bed, evacuate and urinate while the pungent smell suffocates me and attracting rats from the woodworks. They lifted their hands and said it's not their(the establishment and staffs)responsibility to care for her! This echoed with a note of authenticity. Yet again, there were young and older workers masking their true feelings behind a compassionate glaze like icing on a cake but really didn't give a damn except for their own self-interest. So as long as, they appeared to care, the business of compassion would continue its solvency through huge donations from the government. Later, that morning the ambulance came and treated her knees then transferred her to another home. My point, is they never considered the responsibility the cohabitor of the shared room had. The substance abusers get their three hundred dollars a month for disability and the shelter gets their money and looks like the well intended provider so, nothing else matters, does it?
Another life coach verbalised what was I feeling, by saying " the staff pair the vulnerable with the real compassionate life coaches, Counceller's and people in general, because they can't be bothered to do their jobs, or they don't know how to do their jobs, more like." Therefore, it was easier to understand the dire conditions of old people's homes and how badly the elderly are treated in England for example.
A thought sparked some curiosity, after the Vancouver shelter incident which made me, realise society didn't really want to find real compassionate solutions in helping the vulnerable because it cost too much time, money and psychological, emotional investment. All these things cost money and there's a certain demographic they prefer to see languish on the vine, and maintain the preexisting condition of medication to support the pharmaceutical industry.
I'd like to finish with an anecdote I saw on tv seven years ago,
There was a political candidate running for president on the tv show "Scandal" named Sally Langston, who witnessed the unfortunate explosion in a church hoping it was her opposing candidate that had met his demise, but no such luck. So, as she comfortably escaped the building after a false alarm had been called. Her agent ripped her sleeve jacket and smeared dirt on her face and shoved her back in the church to rescue the poor souls that had been shocked in the small explosion, while at the same time making it look as though she had a trace of blood running through her veins because being HUMAN costs in positive and negative ways in politics! especially in the public eyes. A display of compassion as empty as it may have been would have pulled her ahead of her opponent as disingenuous as it was. So,as along as we look as if we care as oppose to really have compassion ,It sells!
So, where does real compassion come from? “to suffer together.” Among emotion researchers, it is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another's suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering. This literally means the neighbourhood community. The one-to-one interactions, instead of focussing on company policies that protect us. It would be beneficial to imagine what it's like to be in that person's shoes. Even if we receive a loss ( inconvenience) at first, we'll gain so much more as a human being. We are born human, but part of our life's experience is to know what it means become human.
Unfortunately, this has been overlooked because the harsh stain of reality is embedded in the fabric of society. You can see that, with how a majority of families huddle together to tend to their needs and isolate themselves from others to protect what they have. And say from a far ," I loved to help, but.........
