“You give a poor man a fish and you feed him for a day. You teach him to fish and you give him an occupation that will feed him for a lifetime.” - Chinese proverb

I think this pretty well sums up the compassion conundrum. The objective of all assistance should be self-reliance. On the other hand, we've come to believe that continuously subsidizing the same people or groups is somehow a productive response to poverty while in reality it perpetuates the problem.