I was challenged this week by the question, “What is the difference between empathy and compassion?”
Empathy, n. The ability to understand and appreciate another person's feelings, experience, etc.
Compassion, n. The feeling or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it; pity that inclines one to spare or to succour.
OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2022. Web. 17 April 2022.
Those are the semantic definitions of the words, and as you read them you think of an experience that fits. Yesterday, I had an experience that fit both, pragmatically defining them for me. I was coming out of Costco with some health food I needed, and I saw new, red Lexus sports car circling then parking on the passenger side of my Suburban. As I came closer to the back of the two vehicles, the driver emerged. She was 35ish, well dressed, and looked to be in good health. I expected her to come toward me and the entrance to the store, but she went the other way, to the rear of the van parked in front of her.
As she reached the back of the van, I heard her ask the man trying to load a large box whether she could help, saying that it would be easier with two people he declined, and she wheeled back toward the entrance and me. I gave her a raised eyebrow salute, sort of acknowledging what she had said, and she returned my salute with a curled lip and a shrug.
It was plain to me that when she circled the parking area she had seen the man working on the box, and she understood what he was experiencing. That was empathy. When she went to him offering help, that was compassion. It is one thing to recognize the suffering of others, it is quite another to take action to relieve it. The same is true of ourselves.