COMPASSION

What does web development have to do with compassion? Aren’t we are only writing code and making web sites attractive enough to hook viewers into staying awhile and looking around?

Thought: Compassion is more than sympathy and more than empathy.  A human emotion spurred by the pain of another.  Compassion is an emotion that often brings someone to action.  Action, that will relieve the pain or suffering of another.  Can compassion be taught?  Yes, but as with anything else, it is taught only to the willing.

I wonder if some people are born with compassion, while others seem to have none at all.  Then I ask…  How can a person have no compassion?  I suppose that everyone has his or her priorities.

I once saw a woman in the grocery store that toppled a display and as I watched her struggling to keep the packages on the shelf, another woman, a stranger to her, came to her aid.  I was old enough to feel bad that I hadn’t thought of helping. I know that is was small touch of compassion, but I bet, to the woman in the store it meant a lot.  That guilt brought me from empathy to compassion.  I now will look for reasons to help someone.  Sometimes it’s only to hold the door or to give a smile.  Other times it’s more.

I have always been a very empathetic person.  Compassion is that one step further.  When I first started thinking of what I would blog about, I figured that I didn’t have much compassion.  While preparing for this assignment, I asked my 18-year-old son what he thinks about compassion.  He sat me down at the computer and had me look it up on Wikipedia.  I asked my mom if she thought that I had compassion.  She said that I do have it, and she stated several times when she felt I had displayed it.  I must say, that I was a little surprised.  I knew that I was full of empathy, but figured I didn’t have the gumption to really have compassion.

Compassion can come in small packages that can mean a lot to someone.  When contemplating how web development was related to compassion, it occurred to me that as developers we too could have compassion.  We will show it by creating our sites with the standards that will make them accessible.  I have a friend with two adult boys that have cerebral palsy.  If I could make their day easier or their life more, enjoyable I would.  I think that making sites using the accessibility standards is a small thing to do to help out people like my friend and her two sons.  We aren’t just making pretty web sites to get peoples attention.

My Conclusion: Web Developers have Compassion.