Living your Life on Purpose for Others

Compassion and Forgiveness

Dr Nitsuh Dejene Ayele

After a Useful and Kind leadership webinar for #UNITE2030 a young recently qualified medic, Dr Nitsuh Dejene Ayele from Ethiopia, reached out and shared the following piece which is one of the most beautiful, moving, authentic examples of what we are trying to achieve. It demonstrates so well the way we need to balance being Useful and Kind to Self, Others and the World.

U&K is honoured that Dr Ayele has allowed us to share it and I know it will both cheer your day and inspire you.

LIVE FOR THEM!

For me, life is living for them. I believe that giving the best of you to others is the greatest source of life satisfaction. An incident during my internship attachment at the paediatrics ward made me realise this.

 It was a bright Thursday morning when I went to the hospital with enthusiasm after doing an intense morning exercise that will get me through the 36 hours duty I had. I usually get there early as I enjoy playing with the sick children. Their smile, hug, cry and playfulness were sublime ways to start my day. Their purity attracts me the most. I reached Mary’s bed. An 8-year-old comely child sleeping inside her mom’s cuddle with her white dress. She is very familiar to our hospital staff because of repeated admissions. She suffers from rheumatic heart disease, and she was on follow-up for the past seven years in our hospital. She has been waiting for surgery to be done abroad and has been waiting for 6 years until her turn arrives. But unfortunately, a recent echocardiographic result confirmed that her heart condition has reached an inoperable stage. In that morning when I reached her bed and woke her up to take her vital signs she smiled and told me to come to her when I finished my work.

 When I came to her she told me that she had a secret to tell me and we went together to the veranda. She started crying and whispered, “Since I am very sick, I can no more wait for my operation. So please doctor I want you to do my operation here without telling my parents”. I found myself speechless and tearful. I hugged her and reassured her I was unable to make any promises. At the grand round at 10 AM, I started presenting her case. Everybody felt sorry about the echocardiographic result. Since I was on duty overnight I was following all of the patients admitted to our ward. After a long night in the ward, we saw the morning sun of Friday and I was reading up on a case for my morning session. I suddenly heard a screaming voice from the other room. Mary’s mother was screaming and when I went there Mary had collapsed. I shouted for assistance and doctors arrived. We did CPR but we could not save her. The screaming of her parents is still on my face. I felt the bitterest feeling in my life, I was in a state of melancholy for days. But what her mother did in the middle of that grief is still imprinted in my head.

 She took the time to say thank you to me. She thanked me a lot for trying my best to make her child happy on her last days. Finally, she advised me that the only thing that will give me everlasting happiness in my life is living for others. As she was saying this her energy was contagious, after that she went out with her tears and her lasting words saying “Live for them”. From that day onwards my life principle changed; I started thinking in terms of the benefit my action has for others. It’s after the loss of this precious child that I started a community-based awareness creation campaign about rheumatic heart disease for our community under our medical student’s association. Trust me all the spices of life are hidden there. You will find them when you start living for others. For those, you don’t know and for those who can’t pay you back! I would like to say thank you to Mary’s mother for showing me the true meaning of life.

 Dr Nitsuh Dejene Ayele

 Observations and some pauses for thought:

  • How do you feel after hearing Nitsuh’s story? What did you feel for Nitsuh, Mary, Mary’s Mother?

  • How does it relate to you and the work you do?

  • Notice that Nitsuh had prepared herself for her long session with some physical exercise. At U&K was talk about how we can be Useful and Kind to ourselves (physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, creatively). In this case Nitsuh does it as a way to prepare for living for others.

  • the unbelievable power of Mary’s mother to be present, even in grief, to notice what Nitsuh was trying to do

  • the continuing on through what feels like a hopeless situation - that important feeling we all often have when overwhelmed by an insurmountable problem - it reminds me of the words of Mountain Oriah in The Invitation, which we use at our Summer Schools

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. 

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary, bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.


The U&K Guide to the difference between sympathy, empathy, compassion, altruism

Sympathy

  • feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune

  • the formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune

Empathy

Empathy is different from sympathy, which is pity or sorrow for others' misfortunes. They share a common root in -pathy, from the Greek pathos, "feeling." Where they differ is in their prefixes: sym- means "with," while em- means "in." If you can empathize with someone, it's because you have been in their place: you've "walked a mile in their shoes," but here are some more detailed definitions:

  • able to name your own feelings

  • able to be with own feelings without feeling the need to close them down

  • able to sense other people’s feelings

  • comfortable with other people’s feelings

  • able to imagine the inner world of the other person, being ‘as if’ them, without the presumption to know

‘To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the ‘as if’ condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is ‘as if’ I were hurt or pleased and so forth’ Carl Rogers 

Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person: Heinz Kohut

A motivation oriented towards the other: Daniel Batson

The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put oneself in another’s shoes: D. M. Berger

A sense of similarity in feelings experienced by the self and the other, without confusion between the two individuals: Jean Decety 

Empathy is about spontaneously and naturally tuning into the other person’s thoughts and feelings, whatever these might be [...]There are two major elements to empathy. The first is the cognitive component. Understanding the others feelings and the ability to take their perspective [...] the second element to empathy is the affective component. This is an observers appropriate emotional response to another person's emotional state: Simon Baron-Cohen 

[Empathy] is what happens to us when we leave our own bodies...and find ourselves either momentarily or for a longer period of time in the mind of the other. We observe reality through her eyes, feel her emotions, share in her pain..”: Khen Lampert 

Since the discovery of Mirror Neurons empathy has been shown to be more than observation of physical behaviours, replication of them, or somatic expression resulting from described feelings but a neurological mirroring. (Mother and child)

Compassion


You are able to enter into the other’s feelings but wanting to alleviate them.

‘Compassion is a mental state endowed with a sense of concern for the suffering of others and aspiration to see that suffering relieved’: Jinpa

It comprises:

1 A cognitive component: “I understand you”

2 An affective component: “I feel for you”

3 A motivational component: “I want to help you”


Other related concepts

Altruism


Unselfish interest in or care for the welfare of others: Webster

Principal of living and acting in the interest of others: Chambers

Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others as an end in itself. Improving the welfare of others often requires a cost in terms of time, energy and risk: Wilson DS (2015)

Other considerations

Beneficence ‘acts of mercy, kindness and charity’ intended to benefit or promote the good of others (Beauchamp 2008)

Benevolence, morally valuable character virtue of being disposed to act for the benefit of others (Beauchamp 2008)