Compassion is the concrete expression of human love and the concrete action of the principle of mutual assistance. In real life, there are always many unexpected disasters, and people often seem particularly isolated when they suffer from disasters. At this time, it is absolutely necessary to accept the sympathy of relatives and friends. Ancient people had no ability to prevent disasters. Faced with great disasters and pains, they can only produce fear and despair. Compassion has gradually become a virtue of human beings in the process of helping others tide over difficulties.

Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, devoted himself to sympathy in Rhetoric. He defined sympathy as "the painful emotion caused by a devastating and painful obvious disaster arrival on a person who should not have suffered from the accident". "Compatriots will imagine that this disaster may also befall themselves or one of their relatives and friends, and it seems just around the corner. It is clear that a sympathetic person must be such a person. " The definition of sympathy is relatively narrow, but it shows that in the thinking of ancient western philosophers, there has long been a position of "sympathy" Ancient thinkers in China noticed the psychological expression of "sympathy" long ago and gave a broader explanation. Mencius said, "Everyone has compassion." If a child falls into a well, someone will save him, because compassion is a universal feature of human beings. In the modern west, with the gradual popularization of the concept of humanitarianism, there are more explanations about sympathy. The British philosopher Hume said poetically in The Exploration of Moral Principles: "In our hearts, besides the factors of wolves and poisonous snakes, there are also some kind-though small-natures, such as the pigeon's friendly quality to people." Here, sympathy has been shown as human nature. American educator William Bennett talked about sympathy in the first unit of his famous children's book The Book of Virtue. His explanation of sympathy is: "If courage is to stand with others when they are facing difficulties, then sympathy is to stand with them when they feel sad. Compassion is a reality of taking others seriously-not only his living conditions, but also his inner world and his feelings. "This is a positive attitude, cooperating with people in trouble or misfortune, supporting him and sharing his worries."

If it is said that when organisms have to resist disasters through mutual assistance in the process of evolution, then when human beings develop compassion into an ethical principle, mutual assistance will have a more just and reasonable psychological basis. Sympathizing with others and helping others requires rich imagination and needs to irrigate this wetland with beautiful imagination. We often say that we should put ourselves in others' shoes. This kind of "putting yourself in the shoes" contains rich associations and contrasts. Put yourself in others' shoes, and the pain and plight of others will become concrete and visualized, and eventually become the fate that * * * will bear and overcome. Andersen's famous fairy tale The Match Girl is an extremely beautiful literary work. It tells a simple story: a girl selling matches froze to death in the snow on Christmas Eve, but she happened to be a little girl selling matches. When the insignificant match in her hand barely warmed her, it once brought her a short and huge happy imagination. This kind of imagination is not so much the illusion of the little girl before she died as the writer's deep and beautiful wish. Andersen's great compassion is fully displayed in his literary imagination. Because of his efforts, everyone who has seen this work has deep sympathy for this poor girl. It turned out that freezing a poor girl to death in a city street in winter was a very common phenomenon at that time. However, due to Andersen's beautiful imagination, the little girl did not suffer alone, and everyone, including writers and countless readers, shared the same suffering. If people will struggle to change and eliminate this tragic phenomenon, then the sympathy cultivated by this kind of * * * will be its strongest driving force.

Sincere sympathy can give the weak and the poor the courage and strength to overcome difficulties. This kind of help is not only material, but more importantly, it sows the seeds of love in one's heart, so that one can understand that in this world, besides disaster, selfishness and indifference, there is also a kind of warmth and care. This kind of warmth may not be a difficult thing for the giver, but it can be enjoyed for a lifetime for the giver. As a song goes: "As long as everyone gives a little love, the world will become a beautiful world." The content of this kind of "love" is very extensive, including affection, love of friends and sympathy for "strangers". Compassion for strangers shows the selflessness and greatness of love. The following is a true story, which tells us how strange sympathy is sometimes:

There is a college student who came from a poor mountainous area to study in a big city. In order to solve the tuition, he secretly used weekends as a salesman of stationery products. He is shy and inarticulate. After a month, he was paid very little. Disappointment and depression put him in a very painful position. He doesn't know whether he can persist in finishing his studies in this situation, because his family has much financial capacity, and he knows in his heart that his elderly parents and younger brothers and sisters who are studying will suffer more because of his drag. He secretly made up his mind to be a salesman for another month. If he can't earn tuition, he will drop out of school and go out to work to earn money to support himself. Every weekend of that month, he was exhausted running around between residential buildings, schools and office buildings, but he was still deeply disappointed. One night, he wanted to knock on the door of a family for the last time. If he doesn't get anything, he will give up trying. He nervously rang the doorbell, and a middle-aged woman came out to open the door. When she asked him affectionately what he was doing, he explained his purpose incoherently. A little girl standing behind the woman, who looked like a junior high school student, enthusiastically pulled him into the room and wanted to buy all the pencils, pens and ballpoint pens in his hand, but the woman didn't object. He was a little excited, grateful and puzzled. Why did he buy so many pens? The question made him realize: did the family sympathize with his embarrassment and did it? The woman and the girl seemed to see his hesitation and said kindly, "Come in and sit down for a while." He said, "No, this little sister doesn't have to buy so many pens, just buy one!" " "The middle-aged woman said," you're welcome. Come in and sit down. I have something to talk to you about. "Unexpectedly, on that day, his whole life changed. The woman saw him selling stationery in the company office. Knowing that he was a college student and his life was hard, she suggested that he stop selling stationery and let him help her children with their studies, so that he could earn hundreds of dollars a month. From then on, the college student studied with peace of mind and later became an excellent scholar.

Compassion is a virtue, but it is only an emotion that comes from the instinct of love and mutual help. It is not omnipotent, nor can it be universally applied beyond specific time and space and specific objects. When our compassion is at work, we must remember to pay attention to two pieces of advice, which is also a limit to compassion.

First of all, from the form of expression, sympathetic love is often reflected in the strong to the weak, the rich to the poor, and the people with high social status to the people at the bottom of society, which is inevitably mixed with a color of "gift" and "giving". Compassion, if it has this color, is not true sympathetic love, but a performance or show off. We often say "sympathy", sympathy is a kind of real sympathy when it is linked with "heart", and sympathy that has nothing to do with "heart" is disgusting, because without "heart" sympathy, it often constitutes personality inequality for the recipient. Although sometimes the recipient will reluctantly accept this sympathy under the pressure of survival, he will feel a strong humiliation in spirit. In addition, sympathetic love is a kind and beautiful emotion, but it is meaningful only if it is applied to those who really need sympathy. If we abuse this compassion regardless of right and wrong, it will not only harm society, but also harm ourselves. Everyone is familiar with the story of the farmer and the snake in Aesop's Fables. Your sympathy for the wicked may be sincere, but poisonous snakes will use your sympathy to achieve their goals, which is counterproductive and loses the meaning of sympathy.

May everyone have a true love of sympathy, and may this love of sympathy shine with rational light and be full of real human feelings.