Like many people, I am sure, I find a walk through Dublin city centre late at night disturbing. Even on an otherwise pleasant evening I find it disturbing because of the number of people I see bedding down in doorways or by the steps of elegant buildings.
When I see other people helping, usually giving out food, I feel better. Then I feel worse again because, after all, I have walked past all of those people without stopping to help.
I am more likely to make a donation to one of the organisations that helps with homelessness than to give hands-on help myself. You might say I’m trying to ease my conscience but if so it doesn’t work as well as I’d like it to.
I admire the compassion of the men and women I see doing that hands-on work even as I walk past them to the bus and to home and forgetfulness.
Compassion means empathising with somebody else’s suffering and wishing the suffering to be alleviated. Compassion seems to be a fundamental instinct and I guess that explains why we can feel guilty for not giving hands-on help even if we are prepared to contribute, at a remove, to the organisations that do.
We often think of women as being more compassionate than men but researchers say that both are equally compassionate – though women might be more willing to admit to it because of social conditioning that makes it easier for women than for men to display “soft” emotions.
You might think that compassion is an expression of love and belonging but there's a good chance it's connected with survival of the species. Charles Darwin suggested that "communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring".
So those who are helping out on the street are acting in accordance with our most basic instinct. They deserve our admiration, nonetheless, because, after all, it would be just as easy and maybe easier to park your basic instincts and to sit at home drinking wine.
Compassion does, at least, bring its rewards. Dr Emma Seppala of Stanford University noted in an article in Psychology Today (http://bit.ly/emmaseppala) that compassion improves the psychological well-being of those who are compassionate. That is because giving, she suggests, is at least as pleasurable as – and perhaps more pleasurable than – receiving.
Compassion even seems to benefit our physical health.
Dr Seppala mentions what strikes me as a rather fascinating Stanford experiment which measured the levels of inflammation in the cells of happy people. Inflammation is, generally speaking, bad for you in terms of your health. People who have a lot of stress often have higher levels of inflammation than other people.
The researchers found that people who described themselves as very happy because their lives were full of self-centred pleasure and enjoyment also had high levels of inflammation.
But those whose happiness was based on out-going, other-centred qualities such as compassion had lower levels of inflammation.
Compassion also tends to connect us to others and social connection keeps coming up in research as a protection against ill-health. On the flipside, not having social connections is bad for our health.
Dr Seppala points out that both men and women rate kindness highly in romantic partners – so we’re back to basic instincts again.
For all of these reasons you could indeed say that those who are helping others are also helping themselves. But what’s wrong with that? In my book, when it comes to self-interest, the enlightened variety has to beat the unenlightened variety any day of the week.
And why am I telling you this? Because, as President Michael D Higgins recently pointed out, the world has become an increasingly harsh place with rising levels of demagoguery and poverty. In such a world, standing up for compassion is worth doing even if, as in my walk through the city streets at night, our own failings can leave us somewhat ill at ease.
Padraig O’Morain (pomorain@yahoo.com) is accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His latest book is Mindfulness for Worriers. His daily mindfulness reminder is free by email.
@PadraigOMorain