Being on the wrong side of compassion

Facing the hurtful things that people do is often a depressing thing for me. What makes it worse is when those hurtful things are done by people that I hold in higher regard than the general public.

None of us are perfect, but I grow so tired of seeing people intentionally hurting other people. What's worse is that so many people that feel privileged seem willing to hurt other people simply for their own amusement. After they go out of their way to hurt someone, they post a video of it where everyone can ridicule the victim.

Here is a link to a video posted on Facebook. Not only did they try to humiliate the pedestrian, they then posted the video so that we could all laugh at their antics.

Normally I would just ignore things like this. What really got under my skin today was the fact that it was shared by a family member of mine that I have a great deal of respect for. Sadly, after realizing what they think about a video like this, I have lost some of that respect for them. Worse, it puts me in a bind. I can't confront them about this without risking tremendous strain in our family that is already pushed to the breaking point all too often.

Just remember: when you do something like this to someone, you are hurting more people than you might ever realize. You end up being on the wrong side of compassion, and by expecting our approval, you put others on the wrong side of compassion as well.