While it is a worthy goal, compassion is sometimes misunderstood and often difficult to put in to daily practice. When greeting, in some African cultures they might say something like, “Good morning, How are we?” It’s a way of fully receiving the joy and the pain of the other. Thank you God for in you compassion is fundamental in your relationship with us. Help us to see compassion as essential to our relationships with one another.

It was New Years Eve. I was discouraged and frustrated. The one person who I know loved me more than anything tried to get me to see from another point of view but I was too focused on myself and I responded harshly. Two months later she became ill and four months later she died. I never got the chance to say I’m sorry and she never got the chance to forgive me. I know that she would have forgiven me because that’s the kind of person she was. “None of us actually ever knows when it is going to be that moment when something quite crucial might in fact be going to happen…” Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Whatever it takes, shorten your path to happiness – let go, forgive and be forgiven.