In my opinion, compassion is something that makes us different from animals. It is the basic humane feeling. In Poland there is a saying, which says that is a person cannot make himself feel sympathetic towards the other, his heart is just like a stone. When we notice that the other person hurts or is very unhappy, the natural reaction should be compassion. Some people consider others' compassion humiliating and they don't like it. But generally it is a positive feeling.
The examples of compassion are widely described in many books. My favorite book, which deals with this feeling is Lalka (the Doll) by Bolesław Prus. This book tells a story of Wokulski, who is deeply in love with a woman. The problem is that this woman- Isabel comes from higher social class. He tried to get her attention and love, but many people considered him silly. As Wokulski was an intelligent young man, he started his own business and was able to earn much money. He had a goal to become rich so as to be able to get Isabel's love. He was working hard to prove her that he was not worse than people surrounding her. He considered her wonderful and the best in the whole world. Unfortunately, she paid little attention to him. She played with his feelings and was a bit interested in him only because he was rich and her family had great financial problems at that time. Wolulski dedicated his whole life for Isabel. Finally, she agreed to marry him. All people were aware that she didn't love the man and that she only wanted to save her family. But Wokulski didn't realize that until he saw her with some other man. All people around him were sympathetic towards him, as well as all the readers of the book. He was truly an honest man and he sacrificed all his life for Isabel. As he couldn't live with the knowledge that she doesn't love him, he decided to kill himself.
The other story, which tells us about compassion is 'You Go Your Way, I'll Go Mine'. The main character of this story is a messenger- Homer. He is supposed to deliver a woman- Mrs. Sandoval- a very sad message. As he comes to her home, the woman asks him to read it for her, as she cannot read English. Homer hesitates against that because he knows what the message may be about. Finally he agrees to read the letter and he has to tell the woman that her son died. He feels really sorry for this woman. He regrets having read the message to Mrs. Sandoval. He didn't know how to behave, when the woman heard the news. At one hand he knew that it was not his problem, but he also wanted to help her in some way.
In everyday life we frequently feel compassion. Everyday we get to know about some terrible disasters, wars and terrorist attacks. We realize that many people suffer because of these things. As we know, what those people might feel, we feel great compassion towards them. Some of us don't like this feeling, because it mostly makes us sad without any real personal reason. But it is the feeling that creates our humanity. If we were not able to feel compassion, we should not dare to call ourselves human beings.
