The Compassionate Truth.

Today's Marketing Cookie is about compassion.

We've all been at the receiving end of what is called "tough love". Even when you may prefer to take your medicine with a spoonful of sugar, as Mary Poppins suggests, every so often, someone will decide that you should hear the raw truth without any sugar coating whatsoever. Blehk! If you aren't prepared to take the truth this way, it can burn your system the whole way down. Lucky for us, today's fortune asks us to consider using compassion when giving someone a dose of unbearable truth.

Most of us know what the "hard truth" looks like when it needs to be given to someone. We recognize it from a mile away, we've been staring at it for months, but hope that one day it will miraculously take care of itself... but it rarely does. If you aren't sure what the hard truth looks like, go to the zoo and look at an elephant or an 800-pound gorilla. Yes, they are the hard truth you have to tell someone about but have been doing everything you can to avoid it. If you need to point out a huge elephant or heavy gorilla to someone you care about, then you know what the "hard truth" looks like.

Delivering the truth with compassion is a real challenge, and most people do not have the courage to deliver the truth with compassion. Please allow me to explain.

Compassion requires love, which means that you would put their feelings and their well-being before your own, and that really requires courage. If we are going to ask an honest question, then who does sugar-coating the truth really protect? Is it for your benefit or theirs? Masking the truth behind little white lies is a lame attempt to tell someone a portion of the truth without taking responsibility for the outcome. White lies are a way of "getting out" without addressing the problem. Of course, addressing the real problem with someone could result in uncomfortable confrontation, and there are very few people in the world with enough courage to endure a potentially tumultuous situation.

We've all heard the old standby line, "It's not you, it's me", which on its face seems like a way of degrading oneself to avoid making someone feel bad, but it does not truly exhibit compassion. If the truth were delivered with compassion in this case, that person would graciously tell the other about the gorilla or elephant in the room and demonstrate their willingness to help them overcome their problem. Does someone in your office have an embarrassing hygiene problem? Do you know an alcoholic, someone with an eating disorder, or a friend with a hair-trigger temper? Pointing out elephants and gorillas, and delivering the truth to them with compassion would require uncommon courage... and that's not all. It could result in a substantial, long-term commitment of support from you, as they overcome their affliction.

Are you courageous enough to deliver the truth with compassion?