The world has never valued kindness.
Kindness in this world of limits has always been relegated to a sign of weakness.
To be kind is stupid.
Ignorant.
You care for your own first.
Blood is thicker than the welfare of the stranger.
If you don’t know, I’m an empath.
I was diagnosed late in life after years of suffering at the hands of the words of everyone around me.
Their anger, their hate, their ignorance, their prejudice, their racism, their bias wore me down to the breaking point.
It broke me.
What kept me from taking my life?
Love.
Compassion.
Caring.
A simple act that cost the person who saved my life absolutely nothing.
But what it did was allow me to be here today talking to you about it.
There is redemption.
There is hope.
There is reconciliation with those that deserve it.
I’m not here to say that those who commit egregious acts upon you are to be forgiven and forgotten.
No.
Never.
I’m here to say that you need to forgive yourself first and foremost so that you can heal.
Never forget.
Never forget the cruelty.
The heartless acts of violence and selfishness meant to hurt, to punish, to destroy.
Compassion is about a standard of morality.
Compassion does not need a religion.
Compassion does not need a doctrine.
Compassion is the act that love tells us to do.
Compassion is stronger than hate.
Stronger than anger.
Stronger than fear.
It can heal the deepest wound.
It can bridge the distance between minds.
It can do the impossible even in the hands of the smallest forgotten person.
Compassion resonates through the centuries.
The love that men and women had in the past is why we are here today.
They fought the good fight.
They stood up to the intolerant.
They ignored the impossible and made it possible.
Compassion is defined as weakness by evil.
You will learn that those that fear a thing call it out as weakness.
As the child who is afraid of the dark calls out, telling the darkness they are not afraid of it…
BOO!
They are.
I have learned that my empathy is a two-edged knife.
It cuts to the truth, but it also cuts me.
It’s hard every day to feel the pain all around me.
It can bring me down.
Yet, it can spur me on, too.
To find a way to lift every voice.
To push for that day when hate is seen for what it is.
Weak.
Peace
Daniel J Frey aka Toby
