Pull Out the Splinter

A therapist friend of mine has been volunteering at a program for veterans with PTSD. But at a fundraiser for that program, he was horrified to learn that the money was coming from a pro-war lobbing group. Am I actually helping here? he wondered.

I’ve spent my life in the so-called “healing” world, but I’ve come to question that term. Society creates harm, then asks therapists, coaches, and spiritual teachers to mend the wounds. It’s like pouring water into a bucket while drilling holes in the bottom.

These holes aren’t just the obvious forms of destruction, such as war — they’re also the way we reduce compassion to a sentimental feeling disconnected from any real accountability or change.

You hear it everywhere: “Thoughts and prayers” after a mass shooting. “Self-care” as the cure for burnout. We misuse compassion to reassure ourselves everything’s fine. When partners leave, it’s because we were just too good for them. When we’re criticized, it’s just other people’s jealousy.

This is why meditation is so important: by creating a pause between feeling and reaction, between harm and the stories we tell about it, we start to see that it’s not all “out there.” Right here at home, we’re also living in some pretty unsustainable ways.

When the Buddha was young, he saw how messed up the world is. But then, he said, I saw an arrow in my own heart. Pulling out that arrow was what let him bring genuine compassion to the world.

As a kid, I used to get splinters from running around barefoot. My dad would try to remove them with a needle, and I’d howl, “It’s fine, Dad! Leave them in!” Sometimes he gave up, and of course my foot got infected.

It’s natural to want to put down the needle. And sometimes we do need breaks. But letting the splinter rot isn’t compassion. Compassion is having hard conversations instead of hiding behind comfortable assumptions. It’s restraining the mind throughout the day, not expecting thirty minutes of meditation to magically bring peace. And it’s more than healing. It’s about preventing harm in the first place.

Pablo Picasso, "The Soup" (1903)