Compassion: The Most Important Trait For The 21st Century
Understand The Difference Between Compassion And Empathy
The difference between the right word and the almost right word, Mark Twain writes, “is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
We often use empathy and compassion in our daily discourse in a manner that is interchangeable.
Empathy is defined as the ability to share and understand the feelings of others; a common trait even among other animals such as chimpanzees and dolphins.
Compassion and empathy are both important for us to function as human beings in an increasingly complex world. But we need discernment to know which one to apply at particular time.
Empathy, in the broad sense of the word, is about putting yourself in the shoes of the person going through a particular distressing situation and you try to do something about it to alleviate their distress. In our history as human beings, language is a recent phenomenon. We were able to communicate using non-verbal cues long before we could abstract using language.
Babies are good at picking up non-verbal cues from adults because of their inability to communicate with spoken language. Unfortunately, as we learn to speak, we slowly lose our capability to be pick up emotional communication. In many instances, our non-verbal communication is superior to our verbal communication.
We learn to speak, but our emotional expressions are ingrained deep in our biology. With empathy we can intuit what someone feels even before we hear their words.
And since life is suffering, we’re able to put ourselves in the shoes of the one suffering. A crucial nuance has to be distinguished here. Your friend may be suffering for the wrong reason. He may be aggrieved that his political party lost an election. He may even want to go to the street to air his grievances. With empathy you’re ‘programmed’ to react immediately, sometimes without even taking the time to understand the circumstances surrounding his grievance. And since empathy tends to be tribal, you get carried away in a frenzy of identity politics.
Compassion is different. With compassion, you’re able to see the suffering of your friend. You understand the pain he feels from the loss of the election. But you do not pass judgement. You see things the way they are. You do not see the election in the light of right or wrong. You understand his suffering but you don’t feel compelled to react immediately.
This does not mean you do not have a moral compass and will let wrong things happen while you watch. It only means you will not react to everything. Remember that to react, you need energy; to go on the streets and wave placards. You don’t have all the energy in the world. Perhaps more important than energy, you don’t have all the time.
The most important lesson in the study of economics is its definition: the study of the allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses. Time is a scarce resource.
Time places a hard limit on what we can do. With compassion, you will be able to pick your battles. Your scarce resource of time and energy will be allocated to something more productive. You will not waste your energy on non-issues. Consequently, you will be more productive and more efficient in the battles that you pick.
The difference between compassion and empathy may be subtle but very important. Empathy motivates us to care for others, without which life as human beings would be impossible.
We’re completely helpless at birth and without the care and love of parents, we wouldn’t live past the first week of life. The instinctive nature of empathy, however, predisposes us to be tribal and to react without thinking of the consequences. Often, when we react out of empathy, our intentions are good. But good intentions say nothing about the outcomes.
Compassion affords us a non-judgemental approach, to zoom out of ourselves and look at the world the way it is, not the way we want it to be. With compassion, we understand that we’re all deeply tribal and our snap judgements are easily clouded by our biases. With compassion we make every effort to understand where the other person is coming from before we react. Compassion makes life more interesting because we look at every person as an enigma wrapped in a mystery.
We are born with empathy. Compassion is a muscle we must cultivate.
