A Lesson in Compassion

A couple of weeks ago I was on training for a computer program at work for three days. I sat beside a woman who needed a lot of help with learning the program, and every time she wanted to ask me a question, she would say “sorry to bother you, but…” At the end of the second day, I had started to get annoyed by it. I complained to my boyfriend and my coworkers about the woman saying: “if she knows she’s bothering me, why does she keep doing it.” When I got to class on the third day she handed me a Tim Hortons gift card and said “this is for helping me so much this week, I really appreciate it.” I felt like such a jerk. She then went on to tell me how she has been struggling with physical and mental illnesses lately, and how she was having a very hard time learning the new computer program during this training. I was reminded in this instance that you really never know what someone is going through and how important it is to be kind to everyone.