Leniency
Show Mercy To Others
Photo by Moritz Feldmann, Pixels.com.
Key Assertions That Help To Summarize This Article:
Displaying mercy is one of the best ways to practice being moral.
Mercy keeps you focused on what you are for rather than on what you are against.
Mercy encourages one to find loving solutions rather than angry reactions.
Mercy helps you rectify affronts rather than exacting retributions.
Seek to relieve the suffering that is likely to be behind bad actions.Displaying mercy is one of the best ways to practice being moral. Mercy keeps you focused on what you are for rather than on what you are against. Rather than being against starvation, through mercy you feed the hungry, for example. Mercy encourages you to find loving solutions rather than angry reactions. It helps you rectify affronts rather than exacting retributions.
The next time you have the opportunity, seek justice but temper it by forgiving someone whom you could punish. Practice leniency by relieving the suffering of someone you dislike. As you do such things notice how mercy triumphs over judgement. Start with yourself. Give yourself compassion for past actions. When facing injustice, state how you feel and then let it go. When you speak of your wrath your wrath will end.
Photo by Mark McMillan, Pixels.com.
HumaNatureConnect Activity
Showing Mercy To Others
Look around you to determine if you can see more acts of mercy than judgmental condemnations. In your experience, are animals in nature more merciful, judgmental, both, or neither ? Write down your answer in your journal. Next, think about how someone has wronged you or did something that you find difficult to condone. Think of this wrongdoing not as the wickedness that comes from bad intentions (because there are none) but as an error-in-practice, a misstep as one attempts to do right but fails. If you are having difficulty allowing mercy to triumph over judgement then focus not so much on the wrongdoing but on your own inability to find forgiveness, or on relieving the suffering, or on understanding the root cause(s) of the poorly chosen act(s). There are always understandable antecedents that cause unfortunate behaviors. It is your job to find them. Do not merely punish someone for a wrongdoing. Focus instead on root causes rather than on the poor behaviors. Work hardest on finding the mercy within yourself. Work on raising your own standards of acceptance, never by condoning bad acts, but rather by focusing on putting mercy over judgement. After a bad act, love the offender anyway. Forgive. Seek to relieve the suffering that is likely to be behind the bad action(s). Never expect rapid changes in behavior. If necessary, remove yourself from harm’s way.
