I once found myself standing in a parking lot with a friend who had historically carried a low tolerance threshold. He was engaged in a well-worn litany of complaints about the idiocy of other drivers, the inconvenience of how the parking lot was mapped out, and the discourtesy of the people in the store we had been in. I found myself interrupting his tirade to ask him whether there was perhaps another way he could be responding to this mountain of perceived injustice. Looking bewildered he said, "None of this should be happening." Sometimes we are so accustomed to living in the house of intolerance and blame that we no longer even question it. We believe that, because we carry ancient traditions of resistance and impatience within ourselves, they will be with us until we die. The path of compassion asks us to overturn our habits, beliefs, opinions, and prejudices, to understand that our hearts can be transformed in every moment we are willing to be still, receptive and aware.
— Christina Feldman, Compassion