A weekly thought for leaders with the courage to introspect.
Compassion, the silent power of freedom.Compassion, the silent power of freedom.
My father was an ordinary man. But like so many fathers: a special father. In his younger years he would set fire to a hornet's nest without mercy. Year after year. "A tidy house is a nice house," he would say with satisfaction. Compassion? Nowhere to be found.
Until I saw him sitting on the terrace later, as a senior.
A wasp buzzed under a glass. But where before he would have intervened without hesitation, he now looked on in admiration.
โWhat a beautiful animal,โ he said softly.

He lifted the glass, released the little animal and said, โGo quickly to your mates.โ
My father was simply a man in development.
The drive for achievement was gone. Freedom took its place. And with it compassion. For nature. For others. For oneself.
Compassion makes you gentler. It teaches you to observe without judgment.
It creates trust. It removes fear. Compassion is wisdom in action.
But how do you develop compassion?
Not by waiting for it to happen naturally. But by making choices.
You are the architect of your character.
Ask yourself:
What kind of person do I want to be?
All over the world people give roughly the same answer to this:
โI want to be a free person. With compassion for others.โ
Compassion begins when we stop labeling. When we allow people, events, and situations to be what they are โ without immediately judging.
And the beautiful thing is: whoever develops compassion for others, also develops it for themselves.
My father lived his last years exactly like this.
A free man.
With compassion for others.
And I hope I can follow him in this.
—
The space between the words is where insight arises.
Until next week when our thoughts touch again.
Hans Ruinemans, Boardroom Monk โฏ๏ธ