People seem to be messed up regarding what is happening in Lebanon these days. The feelings of rage are mixed up with the feelings of sadness and guilt. Everyone watching the news is trying to rationalize his own stand as if it is a personal problem of him. Our history, ideologies, patriotism, religious believes and human compassion work togather to form an acceptable stand that each one of us can live with.

I had a conversation with my collegues at work. I don’t know how discussing a belly dancing men turned to a talk about our current Arabic affairs.

Maybe talking about the male belly dancers triggered some frustration in this guy who is like a lot others are stuggling to manage their own religious and traditional background with the current era of freedom where people are seeing new things they didnt used to see, things that contradict with their normal view of life, morals and believes.

He said “Our problem is that we don’t take actions”

He continued, switching the subject to be about the current war in lebanon, to support his argument “We are not taking any actions now. Like we lost interests. People are being killed and it doesn’t trigger in us the same rage it used to do in the past. Most of us are consumed taking care of his career and daily life responisbilities”

A girl said “We work 12 hours a day, go home exhausted, and don’t even have time to watch the news”

Another one said “We are becoming shallow. So much consumed in our selfish desires”

I say that we haven’t lost our compassion to others. Maybe we don’t feel as bad as we used to feel in the past because our region have gone through much in the past couple of years. It became a normal scene to see dead bodies on TV. Whether in Palestine, Iraq, or Lebanon now, it became a normality in people’s eyes.

While I can see how people feel sad watching the news. I don’t see any selfishness for someone to take care of himself and his happiness. Sure people are being killed everywhere, but it has always been this way. If someone kept his saddness among every single individual who dies in this world, then he would live his life misrable.

Compassion should be a continuous feeling. Not just when we see some bad scenes on Tv. We have many problems in our society. Just walking down the street you can see people struggling in poverty, begging for money on the traffic lights. Others are struggling in secret with their own problems in this life.

Life is full of pain and misery, as it is full of joy and happiness. People shouldn’t feel guilty for the misery of others. Some selfishness is healthy. A person should take of himself first in order to be able to help others.

Do what you can do to help, but don’t let your negative feelings came into rage that causes destruction to yourself and people around. Anger might just help ease a person’s feeling of guilt, but won’t help those who are actually in need for the help.