Since one of my articles was about empathy, I would like to write about compassion this time. You might think it's the same thing as empathy but it isn't. Having empathy means you are able to acknowledge someone else's perspective despite it being different than your own as well as being able to feel the emotions of what someone else is going/went through. As soon as you add the "desire to help" to your feeling of empathy then what we are talking about is compassion.
Definition
According to Greater Good Magazine, an online resource that provides "science-based insights for a meaningful life", compassion is defined as a feeling "to suffer with" (literally translated from the Latin word: compati). This entails to feel someone's pain when confronted with it and being motivated to minimize their suffering by doing something.
3 Ways of Being Compassionate
There are several ways you can implement being more compassionate towards others. One of them is 1) trying to find things in common with people you don't know well yet. Listening to someone else's life stories, for example, can provide an insight that reveals stories about various life experiences including painful ones. Maybe someone's pain is something you resonate with and if it isn't, that's okay too and needs to be respected as such. 2) Feeling someone else's pain when you see them suffering is another step. This means having the ability to feel someone else's deeper emotions. 3) Participating in a marathon for a good cause is another way to show compassion, especially when it's for a cause you can't relate to one hundred percent but still want to support because we are all human-beings.
Let's Be More Compassionate
In times of political and social unrest, compassion is so necessary. Imagine if everyone would be more compassionate towards each other, how much better and more peaceful life would be. Everyone would feel welcomed, everyone would feel accepted and cared for. There wouldn't be any hate, violence or racism, just pure love for another as sisters, brothers and equal human-beings.
