Compassion and Kindness Are Not the Same Thing
It takes courage (and sometimes skill) to step up and do something.
There is an idea in psychology called “The Dunning-Kruger Effect.” Essentially, it describes a human behavior that has repeated itself countless times throughout history: people with little to no skill overestimating their abilities and engaging in something stupid, dangerous, or both.
People do stupid things all the time.
When your confidence gets ahead of your competence, mayhem and destruction await.
Unfortunately, the Dunning-Kruger Effect does not explain why people let their confidence exceed their competence. Why do people do irrational things? Why, for instance, do people with little to no wilderness experience venture into the backcountry with gear purchased at Walmart and a compass from a box of Cracker Jack?
Here’s my take on why people do such things.
It is far easier to dream of great things than to do the work necessary to achieve them. Compassion and kindness are like this.
It is far easier to dream of great things than to do the work necessary to achieve them.
I regard compassion as a character trait. Kindness is the outward expression of compassion. It can take both courage and skill to be kind. Here’s an illustration.
Kindness on a major Miami highway.
Once, while driving in horrendous traffic in Miami, I came upon an awful scene. Scores of dogs of different sizes and breeds suddenly appeared on the road in front of me. Some of them had been struck by passing vehicles. It was as if the skies had opened up and rained these poor animals down on the road.
I pulled over, and shortly thereafter, several other people joined me. The dogs were howling in pain. While one driver called 911 to report the incident, the rest of us slowly began maneuvering our cars to block traffic.
Several of us had blankets in our cars, which we used as makeshift stretchers to move the wounded dogs off the road. It was heartbreaking work.
I have no idea how these dogs, there were at least a dozen of them, showed up in the middle of a major expressway. I suspect they didn’t simply appear out of their own volition. Someone dumped them there.
My apologies to those of you who love and adore your pets. I know this must be a painful story to read. At the time, I had a little kitten at home, but not a dog.
The compassion within me had ignited kindness — a need to do something. I didn’t drive by and ignore the suffering of those poor animals. Neither did the men and women who joined me. In hindsight, I believe that my intensive training in responding to emergencies as a naval aviator proved helpful that day.
Kindness and risk are close cousins.
Was there risk involved? Indeed. I had no idea whether someone would ram my vehicle as I slowly moved to block one of the lanes, emergency lights flashing. All of us behaved as safely as we could, but we did put ourselves into harm’s way. We did so consciously.
Kindness demands risk sometimes.
Collectively, we all did our best to act competently. We didn’t blindly run around, attempting to rescue the suffering dogs. We did not allow our confidence to outpace our competence.
None of us were first responders or animal control officers. We were compassionate citizens who elected to act with kindness.
One of the drivers who stopped was driving a small moving van. He brought out several thick packing blankets that we used to wrap the dogs in. He and I remained on the side of the road for about thirty minutes until police cars and fire trucks showed up.
I was an emotional wreck for the rest of the day.
Compassion is free, kindness is not.
Sometimes, happiness has to be earned.
Happiness is not the byproduct of compassion; it is the result of demonstrating kindness to fellow living beings.
Last week, approximately eight million people assembled to protest the emergence of authoritarianism. This “No Kings” protest, by some measures, was the largest in American history. It certainly dwarfed the 8000 people who showed up for a parade in Washington, DC.
Was there risk involved for those who showed up on our nation’s streets? Yes, there was. Some people do stupid things, remember? They behave without thinking.
But eight million people decided that the best way for them to express their compassion was to be kind. To show up with their fellow citizens and peacefully voice their opposition to policies and actions they saw as cruel.
Like the many drivers who passed by as we were rescuing dogs off the highway, many people passed up the opportunity to rise up and be seen and heard.
Were you one of them?
Kindness in the Himalayas.
When I met a man in a remote region of Nepal who abandoned his career as a trekking guide to build an orphanage for ten children who had lost their parents in the 2015 earthquake, I was in the presence of someone with enormous compassion, eclipsed only by his kindness.
He abandoned his livelihood, his one source of income for his family, to save those boys and girls. It was an enormous risk with zero guarantee of success. But to those children, he is the Buddha incarnate.
I left Nepal knowing that a compassionate heart was not enough. I needed to aspire to be as courageous as that man who built the orphanage (Mawa is his name). I need to inspire men, women, and children to become courageous humans.