Barbara Lazear Ascher's On Compassion

Compassion is to care for the hurt and misfortune of others, but it is more than only a feeling. Compassion is a desire to want to help those hurt and misfortune.
I received my first puppy as a gift from my cousin Elizabeth in November of 2001. She was an adorable mutt with white fur and I named her Lulu. A few months earlier, my older brother and his wife got a black Chihuahua that fit in the palm of my hand. They named him Sullivan, but we call him Soli for short. They both worked regularly, so neither of them had time to take care of Soli. They began to drop off Soli at my house when they would drop off my niece Daliana. Me and my older sister and younger brother started to take care of Soli and eventually he just stayed at our house. A year ago around this time, Lulu and Soli had eleven puppies of their own. My siblings and I were extremely excited because we wanted to keep a puppy. But my parents were somewhat angry because they said it was too many puppies and they told us that we had to give them all away. Clearly, it was too many puppies and we had to listen to them. We started …show more content…
Compassion is not a character trait like a sunny disposition. It must be learned, and it is learned by having adversity at our windows, coming through the gates of our yards, the walls of our towns, adversity that becomes so familiar that we begin to identify and empathize with it”(48). My understanding of this quote is that Lazear believes compassion is not a characteristic human are born with and it is something we learn gradually over time. When she mentions the windows, the gates of our yards, and “the walls of our town” I believe she is referring to the people an individual associates with and what they see from others. And once an individual sees acts of compassion on a daily basis, it can become a part of them if they practice

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