Do you practice extreme compassion? When a calamity strikes, you're ready to organize, donate, volunteer.

But there are quieter personal tragedies all around you every day. Whether it's a faraway look in the eyes of a coworker, friend, family member, or stranger at the next table in the coffee shop, burdens come in all sizes but weigh equally.

Carrying one another's burdens means being attuned to stressed intimates as well as suffering strangers.

Sometimes we all may be a little guilty of stepping over those we know and love to reach out as part of a big project to someone in trouble across the globe. And we should do that. But assume someone near you right now needs a little of your time, a bit of your spirit and your listening heart.

"Compassion: Thoughts on Cultivating a Good Heart invites us to consider that our attention to the little things makes it easier to appreciate the concerns of our friends, families, communities, and the world at large," writes compiler and editor Amy Lyles Wilson. "In so doing, we can begin to conduct our lives with an ever-present spirit of compassion instead of saving such outpouring for tragic situations and natural disasters."

The essays in this powerful little book provide examples for doing just that — whether it's tending injured animals or bearing the burdens of another. Writers as varied as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Wendy Wright, and Robert Corin Morris urge us to appreciate the gift that compassion offers. You'll be guided through several practical paths of enhancing your capacity to care.

Remember: What goes around comes around. Think how grateful you'll be when someone notices the lost, faraway look in your eyes one day and responds with compassion.

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