Just posting this to process some uncomfortable feelings.
This morning I met a woman who is living in a garage with her 2 children. The garage is just a makeshift room without carpeting or any other comfort amenities. She pays $1000 per month. The single bathroom is located inside the house and is shared by many people. She gets up at 3 am and drives two towns over for her job at 7-11. She pays someone to get her kids to school in the morning and feels lucky to be able to pick them up in the afternoon before she heads to her second job.
I want to invite her and her children to come live with us. We have so much extra room. I want to offer to take care of her kids so she doesn't have to pay someone. I want to give her one of my area rugs. I want to alleviate some of her hardship. And I want to alleviate the hardship for her children.
But most of all, I wish that life were not so unfair. So harsh for some and yet so easy for others. I feel so sad and guilty and pained at the luxury and comfort that surrounds me while she and her children struggle to get by. And I feel cold and heartless at the prospect of idly standing by and doing nothing at all, while at the same time feeling overwhelmed because I know the need is so great and so vast.
Because this woman is just one of the many people struggling all around me. Compared to her, the family of four sharing a 1-bedroom apartment across the street seem very lucky. And the people living in their car two streets over, I have to avert my eyes when I walk by because I don't want to see it. It's too painful.
How does one maintain compassion without becoming overwhelmed with attachment and guilt?