Compassion literally means “to suffer together.” Among emotion researchers, it's defined as the feeling that arises when you're confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.
Empathy refers more generally to our ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another person.
Compassion is when those empathic feelings and thoughts include the desire to help.
Altruism, in turn, is the kind, selfless behavior often prompted by feelings of compassion, though one can feel compassion without acting on it, and altruism isn’t always motivated by compassion.
Now that we're clear on the definitions, why is compassion an important quality to have and exercise regularly? In a word, relationships.
There's a saying about compassion buzzing around that goes something like this:
Be kind to everyone because you don't know of their struggles.
When confronted with a difficult person or someone who's being rude or demanding, we humans have a knee-jerk response something akin to "What a jerk," or "Who does she think she is?" And we'd be perfectly within our rights to think this way.
However, there's always something underneath those less-than-desirable behaviors. Maybe that man just lost his wife to cancer and he has to raise two small children alone and he's scared to death and completely overwhelmed. Perhaps that woman just lost her job and doesn't know where her next meal is coming from.
Are there people who behave badly just because they can? Absolutely, but remember that at the root of most snarky behaviors is fear.
Compassion is about making the effort to look beyond what our senses tell us, and giving people the benefit of the doubt.
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