From the Paris attacks to the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado to the alleged jihadist strike in San Bernardino, California, it seems that life in the western world is becoming more dangerous and unpredictable. With each new horrific event, it becomes scarier and scarier to simply go about a normal life in America.

Instead of facing these situations with hatred and fear, let us face them with compassion. Mankind has done it before, and we can do it again. Here are seven examples of when compassion and kindness triumphed over the ugly side of humankind.

1. Black woman protects KKK member from mob.

In 1996, a group of locals assembled at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan to protest the KKK's views and actions. Although the two sides were separated by a fence, somehow a Klansman ended up among the people protesting against his views. When the demonstrators caught wind that a KKK member was among them, they began to chase him down, kicking him and striking him with homemade signs.

Keshia Thomas, a black woman who was 18 at the time, dove over the man to protect him. "Nobody deserves to be hurt, especially not for an idea," said Thomas in an interview with the BBC. "When people are in a crowd they are more likely to do things they would never do as an individual. Someone had to step out of the pack and say, 'this isn't right.'".

Thomas put her well-being on the line to protect someone who might not have done the same for her. She overcame both the KKK's hatred and her own with one compassionate, selfless action.

2. Bosnian couple overcomes ethnic, religious, and social divides with love.

Dusica and Almir met while herding sheep in the mountains outside Srebrenica, Bosnia. They fell in love and got married - even though Dusica is a Serb and Almir is a Muslim. In 1995, Serb forces brutally executed more than 8,000 Muslims in that very town, yet Dusica and Almir were able to overcome the societal rift left by the genocide.

Almir, who survived the 1995 massacre in which six of his uncles were murdered, is "a sincere and honest man" who "just happens to be a Muslim," said Dusica.

3. Elementary school secretary convinces would-be school shooter to give up before killing anyone.

When Michael Hill slipped into an Atlanta elementary school with an AK-47 in 2013, he wasn't planning on giving himself up to police without having killed a soul. Antoinette Tuff, a secretary at the school, managed to talk him down and convinced him not to kill anyone.

Hill reportedly said he wanted to die because no one loved him. In addition to stalling his advance into the school to allow for the evacuation of its 870 students, Tuff let him know that she did love him, even though she didn't know his name. She described some of her personal issues, including the failure of her 33-year marriage and the tumultuous experience of starting her own business. "It's going to be OK. If I can recover, you can too," Tuff reportedly told Hill.

4. Catholic woman risks life to smuggle 400 Jewish children from Polish ghetto during Holocaust

During World War II, Irena Sendler, a Roman Catholic, led an underground operation to rescue Jewish children from the Nazi ghetto in Warsaw, Poland. She was part of a network that saved more than 25,000 children from likely death at the hands of the Nazis.

Sendler personally smuggled around 400 children to safety through various clever methods. Jewish children were hidden under a loose floorboard in the back of an ambulance wagon, in potato sacks, and even in coffins. Many others were brought through an underground tunnel below the outer wall of the ghetto.

5. Egyptian Muslims donate money to build Christian church in wake of ISIS attacks.

Only about 10 percent of Egyptians are Christian. That didn't stop the majority Muslim population from helping them in a time of need.

In early 2015, ISIS militants murdered a number of Egyptian Christians (known as Coptic Christians). Many worried that the violence would lead to another flare-up of the deep sectarian tensions between the two religions in Egypt.

Instead, many Egyptian Muslims showed compassion toward their Christian neighbors by donating money toward the construction of a new Coptic Christian church in Al Manufiyya. "Christians have responded [to the attacks] by sorrowfully calling out to God, and Muslims have shown love and care towards them," said Ramen Atallah of Bible Society Egypt in an interview with Christian Today.

6. Japanese pilot protects American soldier whose plane he shot down

After Raymond Halloran's B-29 was shot down over Tokyo in 1945, he fully expected to die. He had managed to bail in a parachute, but the Japanese planes that had destroyed his plane were still in the area.

Hideichi Kaiho, the pilot of the plane that shot down Halloran's, decided to fly around his parachuting enemy and protect him until he landed safely. More than 50 years later, Halloran met Kaiho in person to thank him for his show of compassion during a brutal war.

7. French president pledges to accept more Syrian refugees in wake of Paris attacks

Many world leaders, including several Republican governors in the U.S., responded to the terror attacks in Paris by becoming more wary of Syrian refugees. However, French president Francois Hollande pledged to accept even more displaced Syrians less than a week after the tragedy.

Hollande said his country would accept 30,000 Syrian refugees at a meeting of mayors from several French cities. "We have to reinforce our borders while remaining true to our values," he said.