Mingyur Rinpoche's Compassion Exercise

Chapter 13 of Mingyur Rinpoche's book The Joy of Living is called Compassion: Opening the Heart of the Mind. At the beginning of it he suggests a short exercise to demonstrate how a compassionate heart can be, not boring, but diligent and active.

He writes:

If you really want to see how active a compassionate mind can be, here's a very simple exercise that probably won't take more than five minutes of your time. Sit down with a pen and paper and make a list of ten problems that you'd like to see solved. It doesn't matter whether they're global problems or issues close to home. You don't have to come up with solutions. Just write the list.

So I did. Here's my list. For today.

1. the fossil fuel/energy crisis
2. poverty
3. the enslavement/oppression of people by their governments
4. war
5. road rage
6. my income tax bill
7. my obsessive anger over situations that don't really matter much
8. becoming a two-handed keyboard player
9. clutter--both physical and mental
10. my tendency to procrastinate