The World Needs More Compassion And Less Pity

The world needs more compassion. However, most confine themselves to feeling pity for the poor, for migrants and for the most marginalized members of society. Compassion is a passive feeling and requires no action. Compassion, on the other hand, is more complex and the only emotion that motivates you to try to alleviate the suffering of others.

These days, the word “compassion” makes people uncomfortable. No one wants other people to have compassion for them, because if someone shows them compassion, it means in a way that they are not on the same level.

Compassion is an exceptional tool that helps you achieve more things. It helps you see the world through a more humane, loving and sensible lens. Not only that, but feeling compassion also makes you feel really concerned about relieving pain and doing what you can to correct mistakes. Self-compassion is also important. You need to be proactive when it comes to your wants and needs.

In short, it is not enough to feel pity. It’s not enough to see someone suffer, and just put yourself in your shoes for a few seconds. You can not just forget the people you see. You need to take action and be committed to others and yourself.

More compassion and commitment

People often forget the psychological implication of certain conditions. For example, “pity” is very interesting. Some people say that when you experience pity, you feel the most basic kind of empathy. You are able to connect with the suffering of others and understand their personal situation.

Feeling sorry for someone does not just mean empathizing with them. Usually you also feel a sense of superiority. There is evidence of what makes you “better” than the other person, such as your social status, economic status or even the physical distance to the human species itself when you feel pity for an animal.

On the other hand, compassion comes from the Latin, ‘cum passio’, and you can translate it to “suffer together” or ” deal with emotions together “. As you can see, with compassion, there is an equal relationship between equals. The goal is not only to understand and feel another person’s pain, but also to commit to helping them improve the situation.

Thus, we can conclude that compassion responds to a confluence of three basic components:

• Emotional. You actively connect with other people’s suffering when you experience their motivation: The desire for well-being.
• Cognitive. When you experience the pain of others, consider it to try to find an action plan.
• Behaviorally. The decision to perform a series of steps to resolve the complicated situation of another person.

Empathy and compassion are not the same. Although most of us empathize with other people’s feelings, that connection does not always lead to action. Compassion requires an action that stems from emotions, but which also seeks a specific goal: To improve the situation of another person.

An instinct worth rediscovering

The world needs more compassion. It needs more people who not only think about the suffering of others, but help them through it.

However, as we discussed at the beginning, compassion is complex and sometimes uncomfortable. You probably do not like it when other people are sympathetic. In fact, most people are even a little reluctant to receive help.

Nevertheless, a group of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley believe that we are able to restore this “primary instinct.” Compassion can be the natural and automatic coping mechanism that has allowed us to survive as a species.

Other studies show that children as young as 2 and 3 years old show compassionate behavior towards other children. This type of positive behavior has disappeared in recent years due to our social condition.

Interestingly, one of the researchers of the study, Dr. Dachner Keltner, shared a very interesting fact. The famous phrase about ‘survival of the fittest’ attributed to Charles Darwin was not something he said or wrote. The sentence was actually made by Herbert Spencer and other social Darwinists who wanted to justify their class and racial superiority.

Charles Darwin emphasized something quite different. In fact, he explained that the more compassionate societies are, the more likely they are to evolve. In his words: ” The communities that included the largest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best and give the largest number of offspring.”