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<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/barelyfitz/">BarelyFitz</a></h5>
<strong>I'm a grownup. I'm pretty sure I know by now that the world doesn't revolve around me.</strong>

Not only do I know it intellectually, but life has given me plenty of examples. For starters, I have two kids (and their lives each began with 14 months or so of breastfeeding). I've also been through a divorce and survived single parenting. Yes, it's pretty clear the world isn't revolving around me.

But still, there's this thing I do that's really been getting to me lately (to be clear, I've been doing it for a long time—it's just lately that it's been getting to me). <strong>I allow the unintentional minor infractions of others to annoy me. And when I'm annoyed, all I can think about it how the annoyance affects me.</strong> Right—as if it's all about me.

In church Sunday I was distracted by a highly energetic child and by the high hum of someone's uncooperative hearing aid. When I drove across town in the snow the other evening, I was annoyed by the people who were driving SO cautiously that they were bound to cause an accident, not avoid one. When I checked on my LinkedIn invitations last night, I was annoyed by the number of people I've never heard of who wanted to add me as a connection (the site only works, after all, if you know someone well enough to be able to vouch for them in some way).
<h4>Being handed an attitude check</h4>
In each instance, though, I was gently asked <strong>"Where is your compassion?"</strong>

When I complained about the LinkedIn situation on Twitter, someone mentioned that it's easy to inadvertently send requests to everyone you've ever had an email exchange with. My attitude softened. Maybe they didn't mean to send requests to everyone, and they're feeling annoyed and stupid about it themselves.

When I complained about the bad winter driving, my 11-year-old said "There are probably some people who moved here from places that don't get any snow, so they're really worried about driving in it." Oh. Maybe I should think of how stressful the situation might be for them. (Don't you love getting schooled by your kids?)

And as I sat in church, trying to concentrate on worship and the teaching, trying to block the hearing aid whine and the restless child, the Holy Spirit asked "Where is your compassion?" I've never had to parent a super high-energy child. I've never had problems hearing or seeing or getting around how and when I want to. <strong>Why should I be focused on how the struggles of others impact me?</strong>
<h4>To assume the best of others is to offer grace</h4>
Last night before bed I tweeted this:
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">I need to be less easily annoyed, less critical. I need to assume the best of people—realize their circumstances are unknown &amp; offer grace.</span></span></em></p>
When I started writing this post I wasn't sure which of my three categories I would file it under. Now that I'm at the end, it's clear it should be categorized under "Belief, hope &amp; doubt," because <strong>I think this sort of daily compassion is one of the main ways I should be different as a follower of Jesus.</strong> I also think that while some people are more naturally compassionate, I'm sort of hopeless at it without some help from the Holy Spirit.