Whatever Happened to Compassion?

Whatever Happened to Compassion?

Compassion. Defined as “sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it” in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.  What happened to it?  Often I feel like compassion is missing from our society. 

This month Disneyland changed their disabled guest access policies due to rampant abuse of their Guest Assistance Cards (GAC).  If you’ve been there recently, you’ve probably observed abuse of these passes.  The abuse had reached epic proportions prompting Disney to change its policies. It is a real blow for people with disabilities, and the really dishearting part is that Disney was ever given a reason to change their policies.

What happened to cause so many people to believe it was okay for them to cheat the system?  That they, too, were entitled to a GAC?  I believe one reason is an overall lack of compassion and a presence of selfishness.  Instead of other guests seeing a person using a GAC and being grateful that Disney was offering assistance to someone in need, other guests felt jealous. 

Other guests watched those with GAC passes “go to the front of the line” and “not have to wait” and felt this was unfair. And of course, life MUST be fair.  I only have to have compassion and kindness when life is fair.  If you missed the memo, life isn’t fair.  Ever.  When did our society start seeing disabled access as a “privilege” to be gained?  When did being first become more important than compassion? 

Let’s assume for a minute that the GAC really DO give special treatment to people with disabilities (which for the most part is completely untrue, but that is another entire topic), would that really be so bad?  Would it really be so awful for there to be ONE place on earth where having a disability gave you a bit of an edge?  Would it be so hard to celebrate a company that chose to have compassion and mercy toward those who struggle every day? 

If we really had a sense of compassion as a society, we would see another struggling and we would happily allow them to go first or anything else that would alleviate their distress.  However, I think our society lacks a consciousness of others’ distresses as well as a lack of compassion when they are made aware of them.  Get over it seems to be the prevailing attitude. 

When did we become so uncompassionate and selfish as a society?  What are we going to do about it?