I’m struggling, but give me credit. I’m trying to understand why humans have trouble showing “Compassion for Stupid.” Everyone has demonstrated a little “stupid” at one time or another, even rocket scientists (however, I don’t know any to confirm this as fact).
My personal belief is that people are generally doing the best they can at any given moment and so stupid just happens. Honestly though, I think it’s a given that Stupid has made us all crazy at times. I certainly have driven myself crazy by doing something stupid; and, I must say that many times, I have heard the word stupid used in regard to someone’s relationship by my psychic medium clients. But, what’s with the frustration and annoyance and even anger that come along with crazy because someone demonstrated the dreaded “stupid”?
Instead, shouldn’t we show COMPASSION for ourselves and others? Could it be that we get ruffled when confronted with stupid as a result of our having trouble accepting our own limitations and mistakes? When I grew up, no one ever even used the word stupid so I thought I’d look it up in Merriam-Webster which indicates the definition for stupid means: not intelligent; or, slow of mind.
Did you know that according to a number of web sites, the U.S. IQ is tied with 5 other countries for an average IQ of 98? The five countries we’re tied with are: Australia, Denmark, France, Mongolia and Norway. By the way, the U.S. is ranked in 19th place with these countries. Also, we are 2 points below the median planet earth human IQ of 100. These numbers are interesting, perhaps surprising and even scary, but they are also reality; and, I believe they are another reason to have compassion. It’s not as though we choose our IQ is it?
What I’ve discovered in trying to understand why we have trouble mustering up “Compassion for Stupid” is that human beings will go to great lengths to not appear stupid. Often, we humans have trouble laughing at ourselves, let alone accepting and having compassion for ourselves. I believe it could be argued that Stupid makes humans angrier than anything else that could possibly happen to them and so they try to avoid Stupid at all costs. You can understand how this could be great for evolution; but what about the stress it causes when taken too far too often? Particularly in our relationships!
There are no “reasons” for not having compassion; only “excuses.” The cure for all of the excuses is to develop an open heart for oneself and others and to accept ourselves and others for who we are in reality. This doesn’t mean to stop learning anything and everything we can get our hands on or challenging ourselves, it just means “don’t beat up yourself or anyone else over Stupid”!!!
In summary, I believe we all need to remind ourselves to ACCEPT that we aren’t all Mensa candidates; and we need to replace some of the relationship complaining about “Stupid” with “COMPASSION FOR STUPID.”