Compassion

Imagining not allowing our "projections" to hold us back, as argued in this thoughtful piece? The idea that we are often very wrong in the assumptions we make about what other people are thinking and feeling strikes a chord. Is there a word for "false empathy" - i.e. for trying to put ourself into the other's shoes, but coming to completely wrong conclusions? Maybe we'd benefit from "cognitive reframing".

So often we seem to impute to others far worse feelings and motives than we subsequently learn were really there, and often isn't the truth that the other person was focused on his/her own problems and, far than condemning us, was probably not thinking about us at all? Even if/when they were, what harm does it really do us?

...Aloud".  Relative latecomer, perfect and tiny; seeping into my senses in my imperfect and tiny Mini arriving at the tennis club during the summer of 1986, just before calm convention came fat, content and unexpectedly into view on the horizon, arrived and stayed. 

Grown ever deeper roots down the years.  Wistful rather than yearning.  Moment(s) in time.  Ultimate line is the ultimate line, and, I'm living it a little more - if not outwardly every day yet as I should - then steadily and a little more nonetheless, for which I'm grateful...

Imagining, while still healthy, donating organs to total strangers without expecting anything in return. The BBC nterviewed a man who did just this after his wife committed suicide.

She had been suffering from progressive multiple sclerosis, and when the pain and suffering became too much for her to bear, she took her own life, leading him to a suspended prison sentence - for failing to stop her - and ultimately to the decision to help others to live by doing as much as he possibly could - by giving away one of his kidneys and part of his liver, and then waiting to become a bone marrow donor.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inspired by others' little secret acts of kindness, PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.

Remembering victims - across all cultures and all times - can remind us of the healing power of togetherness and shared purpose.

"This is the faith from which we start, men shall know commonwealth again..."