Both these moral values are highly needed by our society to ensure peace, harmony, and togetherness among humanity. These values bind people together, allowing them to better understand one another and be there for one another when they need it. The ultimate aim of humanity is not to finish living this life alone but to survive in this world together, creating great and little moments that count.
The two words may differ based on the perception and feelings created between the two people.
Kindness vs. Compassion
Kindness is a polite act that you do to someone you find in need. However, there is no need to stand in his shoes to do such a kind act. Anyone capable of assisting others can do so. The support may have multiple dimensions. It could be physical support for the physically challenged, financial support for the poor, and mental support for the traumatized.
Compassion in comparison to kindness, is a more powerful emotion. It overflows with emotions and feelings just like those of the person who is in need. The person tries to feel in the shoes of the needy and clearly understands why he or she must help them now. This strong cause drives you to work on it, and your next actions seem to relieve their distress. Hence, in simple words, both kindness and compassion are acts that relieve a person in distress, at least to a condition better than before.
Main Difference Between Kindness and Compassion in Tabular Form
| Main Parameters of Comparison | Kindness | Compassion |
| Definition | When you feel like helping a person in possible ways when someone is found to be distressed or in despair. | Compassion is described as an act that is done with clear understanding and with a full mind and heart. |
| Emotional Involvement | A kind act may not necessarily involve emotions and feelings for the sufferer always. Any person who is capable to help the needy may come forward with such gestures. | A compassionate person who tries to view the situation and perceive it standing in the suffered shoes has a better and clear understanding of what is going on and how worse are the conditions It involves more empathetic emotions than sympathetic. This empathy ensures that his further actions ensure the relief of distress. |
| Personal Involvement | Doing kind acts do not require people to stand and view situations from the sufferer’s shoes. Also, the person who may do such polite gestures leaving the situation halfway doesn’t necessarily know if their help has created a positive impact on the previous conditions. | This value is inflicted more based on empathizing with a situation than being sympathetic to him. Trying to feel the same emotions as that of the sufferer can help him to act accordingly and apt to the situation. |
| Effects on a Person | On the other hand, kindness which could also be done mindlessly may not have a high effect on the person. Because always emotions cost more than materialistic things especially when it is a person in need. | A compassionate person who approaches the affected or victim with mental and moral strength helps relieve the situation much better compared to just providing them with materialistic things. |
| Outcome | The outcome of kindness may not always create an impact on existing conditions. This is because a person who does a kind act is not completely involved in the situation. Rather, these gestures are performed just on basis of sympathy or humanity. | A compassionate person whose actions reflect their mind and heart and hence the impact and personal satisfaction received from it is also higher than usual. |
| Examples | Giving money to a person who is blind singing for money to buy food, and a random person giving a few coins as an act of kindness. | A compassionate person who writes a board near the blind person attracts many people to him and leaves their contributions and finally buys food for him. This can be said as an example of compassionate person gestures. |
What is Kindness?
Kindness is a polite act that you do to someone you find in need. However, there is no need to stand in his shoes to do such a kind act. Anyone with the ability to assist others is capable of doing so.
Acts or gestures performed in kindness may not always be effective. The main cause of this is that the person, after performing an act, just leaves the situation halfway. The sufferer may not be financially unstable, but it was the moral support he needed when the person just left him on the street. Hence, the outcome of kindness may be less observable compared to compassion. However, every act of kindness performed points out that humanity still exists and also influences other people who watch this act to do the same and continue this cycle.
What is Compassion?
Doing something mindfully and wholeheartedly can be simply compassionate. The joy experienced over the completion of such acts can be more rewarding and satisfying. Being compassionate to a person is when you try to see his situation from his perspective, also known as "viewing it standing in his shoes". On such an assessment of a situation, your thoughts and emotions are identical to those of the actual person in need. This helps in a better understanding of a person's immediate needs and how to act accordingly to them. Because, it's not always money, or materialistic things that they require. Instead, it may be a simple hug or ear to lend or moral support that a person needs. Hence, compassion must create actions that are more effective for a situation. It can quickly relieve or alleviate a situation from worsening.
Compassion is filled with greater emotional value than kindness. Because kindness may not always be mindful in action. Kindness can also be done without actually being involved either physically or mentally in a person's situation. However, this may be significantly less effective in terms of actual assistance to the person in need.
Personal involvement is high in the case of compassion. This value is inflicted more on empathizing with a person's situation and feeling if the same situation could also happen to him. He acts accordingly and is instantly apt to the situation. Because a person who tries to view a situation from the sufferer's point of view gets a better idea and understanding, and their emotions also hit the same note. It results in more empathetic emotions than sympathetic ones. This empathy ensures that his further actions ensure the relief of distress.
A compassionate person can relate to the existing conditions, and for the same reason, every gesture he makes ensures progress or betterment in the current situation. That is, the outcome expected is always positive in the case of a compassionate person. On the other hand, a kindness act performed solely for its own sake and abandoned halfway through, leaving the impact on needy people unnoticed, maybe no more or less effective in alleviating worse conditions.
Maim Difference Between Kindness and Compassion in Points
Definition
Kindness can be defined as a polite act that you do to someone when you find the person in need or distress. In comparison to kindness, compassion is a more powerful emotion. It is brimming with emotions and feelings, just like the person in 2.
Emotional Involvement
People can also perform small kind acts without actually being involved in a situation mentally or physically. Hence, emotional involvement is much less here. However, a person who tries to view a situation from the sufferer's point of view gets a better idea and understanding, and their emotions also hit the same note. It results in more empathetic emotions than sympathetic ones. This empathy ensures that his further actions ensure the relief of distress.
Personal Involvement
Kindness is a polite act that you do to someone you find in need. However, there is no need to stand in his shoes to do such a kind act. Anyone capable of assisting others can do so. However, doing something randomly for someone may not be considered assistance always. Because the person is expecting specific help that can relieve his current distress and only this help can prove helpful. Instead, doing some random kind acts and leaving them halfway may not be fruitful.
Personal involvement is high in the case of compassion. This value is inflicted more on empathizing with a person's situation and feeling if the same situation could also happen to him. He acts accordingly and instantly, apt to the situation.
Effects on a Person
Kindness, which could also be done mindlessly, may not have a high effect on the person. Because emotions always cost more than materialistic things, especially when it is a person in need. On the other hand, actions made in compassion are more apt to the existing situation and hence can easily alleviate and prevent any further worsening.
Outcomes
The outcome of kindness may not always be efficient and apt to the situation. This is because the person doing something for the sufferer doesn’t offer any help. It must help that he wants or needs. Only then can such acts prove betterment in society.
The outcome of anything that you do wholeheartedly and with mindfulness is always high satisfaction and also a great success in whatever you aim for. Being compassionate, hence, can better relieve a distressed person by knowing what to do for it.
Conclusion
These two values have an essential role in binding people together and ensuring the attainment of peace and harmony between human beings. It shapes humanity and relationships between people. It is important to help each other tackle life's struggles and live a happy life. Kindness is an act done when you have feelings for another person who seems to be in despair, distress or need. Compassion, on the other hand, is when a person perceives a situation and responds to it by acting appropriately.
Hence, for the same reason, later value, which has more empathizing emotions over sympathy, is valued more. Kind acts can be performed even without actually feeling emotions for the other person. It can be done just for the sake of it or just because he or she is capable of offering support. It is usually done without expecting anything in return. However, in compassion, a person is ready to do something for someone even if they do not belong to a wealthy or capable section of society. In this case, it is purely based on doing what your heart says instead of hearing what your mind says. Hence, both mindfulness and wholeheartedness in one action can be evident in his gestures. Also, the outcomes of each of these entities differ by the effect they can cause on the person in despair or need. Kind acts may or may not completely improve a person's condition from that which existed previously. This is because doing something for a needy person cannot be fruitful. Only when a person receives the help that he needs can it is called an offer or service.
On the other hand, a compassionate person who relates himself to the existing condition works accordingly, like how he would act in such a situation or case. The depth of emotions felt is also deeper in the case of compassion. For the same reason, the satisfaction and success can be greater than what you receive from a usual kind gesture.
This is because, in the former, a person does something and leaves it at halfway and is unaware of what happens next or what the outcome of his action was. On the other hand, every gesture made by a compassionate man ensures a certain level of progress or betterment from a previously existing condition.
Both these moral values are essential components of a living being. It ensures humanity's clan still claims this world. Living in harmony and peace is the ultimate goal of this world.
References
- https://psychcentral.com/blog/radical-hope/2020/06/the-difference-between-kindness-and-compassion
- https://heartmindonline.org/qualities/compassionate-and-kind