Strategic Compassion
Compassion gets results far more readily than conflict.
A few years ago when I owned a house, the trash collecting service in my town was ok, but many weeks some things would be left in the driveway. Wild animals (or sometimes my dog) would pick things out and leave garbage all over my lawn, which I would have to go outside to clean.
I wasn’t often home when this happened and I didn’t want to phone in a complaint without understanding what was going on.
Instead, before going to work one morning, I hand-wrote a quick thank you note to the trash service workers who collected my trash and attached a 10$ bill to it with a statement that read that I wanted to buy their coffee for them as to thank them for their work —omitting the issues I’d been having with the service.
I did this at a time when I was in the process of filing bankruptcy, working 7 days a week to keep myself fed as well as having my power turned off. Even though I knew I was losing a much-needed meal by giving up that 10$ at that time, something inside told me it was the right thing to do with it.
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I wasn’t disappointed. I came home that night after having worked 2 jobs on the same day having found that not only had everything been collected, but my bins had been returned to my front door for me by the trash servicemen.
From that day forward, until I lost the house to the bank, the yard remained clean. I never had an issue with the service from that point forward.
The lesson?
When there’s a problem, our default is often conflict — even though we know that approach probably won’t work.
If we move to understand first, we can see a bit more clearly and make different choices — like showing compassion first to solve a problem, even if it means a degree of personal sacrifice to make that possible.
Nobody likes picking up smelly trash to feed themselves and their families. I’ve since worked at a dump to support myself through the pandemic, so I know even more about that now than I did then.
If we start by recognizing the plight other people first, we can solve almost any problem without conflict.
