Love vs Compassion

Love and romance, everyone wants, understands and talks about these concepts. In fact, they are the hottest topics these days. Visit any social media and observe the influx of post after post on this subject. People like such posts because they identify with these emotions. It's easy to understand love and romance because these involve personal gratification. They reflect on individual choices and attachments.

Love weaves threads of relationships, tangles of emotions and webs of expectations. Even the most selfless love,  that of a mother, calls for bonds. There are responsibilities that are part of these relationships. Some defined and vague obligations need to be fulfilled. Love yearns for reciprocation. It pines for the beloved and craves satisfaction.  Such is the nature of love.

Compassion, on the other hand, is something different, though many can confuse it with love. 

Compassion and empathy are selfless. They are free of attachments or personal ties. They don't look for reciprocation. They are a step above love, in my dictionary, because they are absolute acts of humanity. They make a person do heroic acts. They turn people into humans.

Every individual ever born, is capable of love. The world may not approve of that love but the fact cannot be denied that even a hard core criminal knows how to and loves somebody or something. Love runs like blood in every individual. It's an animal instinct. Love is a common and very basic act. The object or subject of desire and the method of how that love is expressed render dignity and respect to that love. Well defined boundaries give legal or obnoxious status to love. In one case, it's devotion and in another, it's obsession. 

Compassion is rare and many lack it. Empathy is even harder to find. The reason is the pure selfless nature of these emotions. In a world where everything is understood on exchange value, give and take basis, where personal joy and happiness is number one goal, where self comes before others, in such a world, compassion and empathy are hard to come by. These precious emotions are natural characteristics of some personalities but they are mostly learned sentiments. 

The world is in turmoil in recent times because love and romance is ruling every heart but compassion and empathy are taking a back seat. We need to bring them up front. Until and unless, our hearts open up for "others" the way they do for "ours", the world will not be a better place or at peace. True happiness will not prevail till the day love embraces compassion. A partnership of the two will bring a total bliss, not only to the hearts but to the whole world.

                                                                                                                                          Shamsa Anwar.