A friend of my was cashing a large cheque at a bank. The teller asked cheerfully with a touch of envy: “What did you have to do to get this kind of money?” His father died two weeks ago. The other day I walked out of Krispy Kreme to a car parked in a handy capped parking spot and felt the glare of evil eyes on me. My suspicion is confirmed when I heard a woman saying something like “all posers should be tasered.” as she walked past the car. Had she asked instead of judged I would had told her that I am driving my father-in-law around and he is going for knee surgery next week. He is currently finishing his donut inside the store.

We so often jump to conclusions and judge before we have all the facts. “Thou shall not judge lest thee be judged.” The fact is we mortals will never have the ultimate knowledge and wisdom to qualify for the seat of the judge of the universe. Why try? Why not have compassion instead?

An unfortunate side effect of judging others is the harm we do to ourselves. The woman at the parking lot is driving away thinking the world is full of scammers who are always taking advantage of the system and a strict penal system based on physical punishment is the answer. What a sad imagery of her world? What a bad approach? What a wrong conclusion? And all because I was actually doing something good. Her world view is warped out of proportion because she judged.

The subject of my next documentary is a juvenile drug addict who has being in and out of jail. He operated a brothel. He was a drug dealer. He almost killed someone. He carried a gun to school. Is he beyond redemption? I leave that to a higher authority. Because I also know he is extremely caring and polite. He loves his family. He loves kids. He enjoys saving animals. He wants to get better so he can help young people to stay clean. Does he have something to offer the rest of the world? Does he have something we all need to learn? Absolutely!

I drive a lot for work and I often catch myself cursing at the crazy drivers who cuts me off or almost pull me into an accident. Bishop Desmond Tutu tells us it is okay to be angry from time to time. But it is not okay to hold on to resentments. “We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.” Compassion is so important it is the fundamental element in almost all of the world’s major religions.

Compassion completes us. It makes a person into a golden ring of contentment and joy. If we can link to other individuals then we have a golden chain. When chains come together we have a chain mail made of compassionate people. With this armour we can weather any storm and survive any hardship. This is why we are here and the dinosaurs are not. This is our vision for the world in the near future. Bishop Desmond Tutu is onboard. Will you join us?

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Published by ZEN WANG

Nuclear Project Engineer turned Filmmaker. View all posts by ZEN WANG