Is compassion only a feeling, or does compassion require you act upon the feeling in some way?

The emotion that qualifies you as a compassionate person will naturally strive to find outlets in your actions. To me, compassion can be defined as a strong feeling of sympathy or empathy that relentlessly seeks to express itself in action toward an unfortunate person or animal (although I believe friends who tell me they have compassion for the forest). The urge to help is an undeniable component of compassion, in my opinion.

If that urge to help is continually squelched or ignored, and pushed back to wherever it comes from, it can weaken, and you can become hardened; immune to your natural desire to help someone who is struggling. Although it may be something small like a prayer, (and I believe prayer can be anything but small), true compassion will at times require more, in terms of a financial contribution or a physical activity. It may mean an anonymous donation to the unemployed family down the street, or visiting a dying loved one (or their family).

It is not unusual for compassion to require a sacrifice from those who wish to retain their compassionate spirit. It may be that you visit the lonely, plant a vegetable garden for a neighbor, or simply do your best to encourage the discouraged. Strangely enough, compassion's compulsion to help, instead of being satiated by these acts of kindness, is only made stronger.

Your need to express compassion does not go away and leave you self-satisfied, convinced that you have done your part. Instead, it urges you on to do more, which is as it should be. When we lose our compassion and the actions it inspires, we lose a part of our humanity that we can ill afford to be without.

youtube.com/watch?v=DfZqXLnBYb4.

I feel it does deserve action as well. Having worked in a retirement home and a rehabilitation center you HAVE to have compassion and if you don't when you walk in, you either gain it within your first shift, or you are seen as a pretty cold person. To me an act of showing compassion (using my scenario of a retirement home) is sitting down at 3 AM with a wife who can't remember much, she questions who her husband is, she cries because her kids don't come..sitting with her for hours making sure she is ok...That is finding something within your heart to help and comfort to try and understand the toughest situations.

:).

Yes compassion is a feeling which is considered one of the great virtues of different religious denominations and non denomination. But it does not require you to do something rather it creates in you a sense of urgency in doing something to alleviate someone's hurt or suffering. So, when you feel compassion sometimes it is not enough and this feeling will motivate you into doing something help others because you understand how much hardships they are going through.

Having said that, doing donation is not the only way to act upon. Giving some of your time to improve their status would be a great thing to do.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.