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Discussion on: Terrible Interview Questions

 
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Robert Rodes • Edited

No, I am not kidding you. We disagree on your main premise, as such, we disagree entirely. Compassion is invaluable and unlimited. To limit it is to say that something that is compassion is not.

Compassion is not the motivator of the stories in your scenario. Sometimes not attending someone's funeral is the compassionate thing to do (the "right" thing is never something upon which everyone agrees, which suggests that there really isn't any such), sometimes firing someone is the compassionate thing to do. A person may perceive himself to be a parasite, may be in denial about that perception, and at the same time act out that perception as if it were real. The compassionate thing to do might be to ask him to find some other line of work, in the hope that he will find something to do that he really cares about, and in so doing stop perceiving himself as a parasite.

If you hold these ideas about other people in your mind, you motivate yourself to emulate them. "Do unto others before they do unto you" sort of thing. You also justify your own approach to life with these sorts of judgments, not realizing that you are creating the circumstances that you judge, projecting them out into your world, denying that you have done so, and then taking the perception that this is the "real world" that you "see."

So, again, you see, we disagree entirely. :)