Curiously inflated value in the stock market or with fine art is not a new concept nor is it something hard to wrap our brains around. When financial gains and losses are at stake, we can see how easy it is for certain things to get overly hyped. Authentic compassion is not immune from exaggerated hype either.
What is compassion hype? Let’s first consider the concept of hype itself. Hype is intertwined with the perceived value of something and there is a heightened level of excitement connected to that perceived value. Is this to say, everything that is hyped up has a value that is exaggerated? No, but it is by no means uncommon for the value of certain stocks, art pieces, real estate opportunities, professions, etc. to be overstated. However, there are those that get hyped because there is a perceived, current or future, value that is appropriately greater than their counterparts.
While value is often thought of as monetary worth, it is important to consider the non-fiscal side of value. The things that benefit us emotionally and cognitively are incredibly valuable. They are also not independent of or allergic to financial value. So, if fear of financial insecurity is something holding you back from trying to build your own cognomotional bank account, try to let that go for a moment. If you just Googled “cognomotional” or thought, “WTF is congnomotional???”, I don’t blame you. I just made up the word and I’m really starting to like it.
cognomotional adjective
emotionally considerate cognitive understanding
Let’s get back to compassion. To have compassion means to recognize suffering (pain, distress, hardship) and the impact or significance of that suffering. There is great cogonomtional value to having compassion. However, we often confuse talking about compassion for having it. Simply talking about compassion and placing it up on a virtuous pedestal creates a fragile bubble of hyped perceived value. While I think, it is beneficial to talk about compassion, I believe it is more constructive to talk compassionately.
I totally see the irony in me using this article to talk about “talking about compassion”. Do I have all the answers about “fixing” compassion hype? No. In fact, I don’t think it is even something to be fixed. However, I do believe it is important to acknowledge the hype, whether it relates to compassion or anything else. When we value something, especially core values like compassion, it is completely understandable that we want to hype it up to others. Being aware of the hype in these conversations is a great place to start from. That awareness provides us the opportunity to reflect on our authenticity and evaluate whether our actions are aligning with what we’re saying. To put it bluntly, “are we practicing the compassion we speak of?”
Sometimes we may be talking to others about compassion and other times it’s an internal dialogue. As we examine these internal and external conversations, it is useful to do so without judgement. I also find it valuable to consider whether I am approaching compassion cognitively or emotionally. It isn’t not that one approach is better than the other, but I do find a cognomotional perspective of compassion to be extremely worthwhile.
