#compassion

[emptiness-statue]

[puddlellama]

don't let a cruel world make you a cruel person. choose with every gritted breath, every grunt of pain, every drop of blood, to be kind.

we can't do this alone. a better day will come.

[creature-wizard]

The real secret to being an effective activist isn't to hate yourself. It's learning to love and cherish everyone. You must learn to appreciate everyone's humanity, to make yourself able to see their potential and their inherent deservingness, and to value their perspectives and their feelings. You must learn how to lift up the marginalized, not put yourself down.

[animentality]

[thepeacefulgarden]

[free-my-mindd]

[youlookkindadead]

i've seen quite a bit of confusion about this, so let me attempt to clear things up :

empathy is the ability to feel somebody's emotions as though they are affecting you personally. for example, somebody tells you "my dog died last night!" -> you now feel as though you've lost a pet personally -> you feel grief and sadness just like the other person. not everyone has empathy. it's a trait some people develop and others don't. some have high empathy, some have low empathy, some (like me) have none.

sympathy is the ability to understand and care about somebody else's struggles, even if you don't feel them yourself. so, somebody tells you their dog died -> you realize how this affects them emotionally -> you care about this person, and are upset that they are suffering. not everyone has sympathy either! it's a scale, just like empathy.

compassion is doing something to relieve another person's suffering or make them feel better. somebody tells you their dog died -> you don't want them to remain upset -> you come up with ways to help them feel better, like offering comfort and distractions, or other forms of support. compassion is a learned trait, not something you can be born with like empathy or sympathy. anyone can learn to be compassionate, although some may struggle more with it than others; it's a skill, just like anything else.

however, none of these are required to be a good person. that's a choice you make on your own accord. i hope this clears things up!

if you're reading this please boost my mutual aid post if you can to help me not starve