The Difference Between Compassion And Empathy – Buz Blog

“One of the differences between empathy and compassion is that while empathy is simply experiencing another’s emotion, compassion is a more empowered state where we want what is best for the other person.” – Dalai Lama

Empathy basically can be defined as putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. It can be a very useful tool in trying to understand the reasons or motives for another person’s actions. In the proper perspective, it can be a device that aids in dealing with other individuals. It can, on occasion, be a dangerous instrument if it is used incorrectly. In many cases, probably in most instances, seeing things from another person’s viewpoint is a good thing. If that individual’s mindset is stilted, prejudiced, ignorant or jaded, the empathetic individual may suffer from that same affliction as the object of their empathy. The actions taken as a result of that empathy might cause more damage to the person for whom the empathy is applied.

Compassion, on the other hand, while it does take into account the other person’s situation and emotions, seeks to find a solution to that person’s situation, problem or dilemma. Empathy is feeling based. Compassion is pragmatic and seeks to alleviate the causes of the anxiety for the recipient of the problem. Empathy requires only feeling the same angst as the other individual. Compassion necessitates directing that sympathy toward a resolution of the other person’s problem. On occasion, the empathy felt, causes a false compassionate response.

Many times politicians, the media and “experts” commingle the terms compassion and empathy resulting in thinking that they mean the same thing. That leads to disasters to our culture as well as to individuals. To illustrate what happens when the terms are confused by the politicians, experts, and media, one needs to look at all of the difficulties that have arisen with the subject of sexual transitioning.

The dilemma is that someone thinks they are actually the opposite gender of which their biological body shows them to be. Those who feel that person’s “pain”, want to alleviate it. This leads to the false compassionate solutions that reek havoc on our culture, the individual and often, that person’s body. These solutions lead to aggravating the problem. The answers most often suggested by the empathetic include letting the afflicted person dress and affect the mannerism of the reverse of their biological gender, use restrooms of the opposite sex, play in the opposite gender’s sports or falsely transitioning that person through surgery and/or hormones.

The major disconnect is that the person with this desire, wants what is scientifically not possible. Unless or until science is able to change a person’s genes, his or her gender will never change. The real quandary is that the individual with this desire has a mental illness. Regardless of what so-called experts say, this person’s mind needs therapy, not the body. No reasoning person would allow another human, who thinks he is a dog, to chase cars. This is just a variation of the gender dysfunctional psychosis.

So many of our society’s problems have been aggravated by trying to ease an individual’s bad feelings and emotions, rather than confronting the actual causes of the ill feelings and emotions. As the Dalia Lama also notes: “if someone is being crushed by a boulder, empathy means sitting next to them to feel the weight of the rock. Compassion means finding the strength to lift it off of them.”