“If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world." - Oscar Wilde
A lot of people do not agree or get this because they don’t understand the difference between compassion and sympathy.
I wrote about the difference between sympathy and empathy in this email.
Sympathy vs. Compassion
Simply put:
Sympathy = Bad
Compassion = Good
Now, a lot of people think sympathy or even empathy is good. It isn’t. To quote a book that a lot of people know, when two or more people gather in my name I am there. This means that when two or more people all think about and focus on the same thing it intensifies whatever you are thinking about.
Like all the studies when they have prayer groups do prayer for certain patients and not others and the prayer group always has statistically better results.
So what does this have to do with sympathy and compassion?
Sympathy is your joining in feeling bad with the other person. Just like above, so if there is two people feeling the bad emotions, they just build on each other and make it worse.
Compassion is understanding where the person is at and allowing them the space to move from their pain or suffering to joy or happiness.
Sympathy keeps you both stuck in the negative emotion. Like when somebody says to someone, “ooooooohhhhhh that’s too bad.” Your sympathy/empathy is feeling the same way they are.
Compassion is staying in a positive emotion like love. While getting where they come from.
So to summarize…
Sympathy=Bad
Compassion=Good
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