If you believe some commentators, we’re in the midst of a compassion crisis, with a particularly brutal daily news cycle taking its toll on our reserves of sympathy. The more suffering we see, the less we care, as we mentally switch off from others’ pain. The result may even be that we struggle to feel as much concern for people close at hand when they come to us for support; we end up feeling numb to any expression of emotion.
“The whole world is at risk for ‘compassion fatigue,’” Time magazine declared recently. And while occasionally disengaging might seem like a sensible form of self-protection, the prospect of losing any sense of concern for others over the longer term would be a disaster. But is this an inevitable consequence of paying attention to the realities of the world around us? Are there ways to avoid it?
