Sympathy, feeling pity or sorrow for another’s misfortune, this is a word that has been a big part of my life and who I am as a person. I have always been a very compassionate and understanding person growing up; my parents taught me to treat others the way I wanted to be treated and to not say anything at all if I couldn’t say anything nice. Throughout my school years I stuck to those two lessons. I wasn’t the most social person in school, I was painfully shy at times even. I only had a few friends, but I was nice to pretty much everyone in my class, and I developed a reputation for it.

When high school rolled around though I came to realize that people were actually taking advantage of my compassionate nature, and there were several occasions that I ended up getting hurt because of this. I never quite understood it, I had so much kindness and compassion to give and a lot of times people would take it and return nothing but mean words and ridicule. After some taking some time to heal though, I was able to move on with my life.

It was still difficult to communicate with people at times; but I had to face reality. Sometimes the world can be cruel, and being nice to every single person you meet isn't always going to have the best outcome. It took some help from some very close friends, but surely and slowly I was finally developing a back bone. I wasn’t calling people out when they told me about their misfortunes and their issues, that would have been wrong. I was however, finally able to tell when someone was really milking it and dragging it out. If possible, I even tried getting both sides of the story to help me come to a conclusion. After all facts are a key component to finding the solution, we can never make a logical conclusion on opinion alone.

As I continue to grow as a person I still do my best to show sympathy to people in need of it; and with the events that have occurred lately I feel like a lot of people need it. I will still give others my sympathy and my kindness if I feel they really need it but there are also some things that people need to understand about me when it comes to sympathy. First, I’m not here to solve your problems, I will listen to you, give the best advice I can, and do what I can to help, but even I have limits. Second, don’t think that I am stupid and blinded by my compassion, if you expect sympathy from me when you are lying to me and falsely accusing someone I’m close with then I will not take your side. I won’t allow you to talk badly about somebody I care about, no matter how you try and paint the picture. Finally, I am compassionate and understanding yes, but I am not someone who can walk all over. If you try and hurt me now I will stand my ground. You wouldn't like it if someone put you down a tried to hurt you; so, why do the same to me?