Passion vs. Compassion: Understanding the Fundamental Differences
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Written by: Jonette Dyer
When you have a strong feeling or desire for something, you may be confused about what you're experiencing. Are you feeling passion or compassion? Even though these two words sound similar, they are quite different in meaning. By understanding these differences between passion vs compassion, you can use your passion to embrace the world with a strong sense of compassion.
What is Passion?
Passion is an emotion that can span different things, depending on the context. It can mean a strong desire for or excitement about something. You can have a passion for your career, for example, or a sport or area of art that’s important to you. It can also mean strong love for someone or something with a sexual or romantic connotation. Most romantic partners will say that they have a passion for one another.
Whether romantic or not, passion is an intense emotion that comes from within you. It is hard to hide, and it’s typical that someone with a passion for something or someone will spend a lot of time talking about the object of their passion.
What is Compassion?
Compassion is typically born from a sense of concern for another person or situation. When you feel compassion, you will want to help the situation or the person to get better or fix a problem. Someone may show compassion by spending time helping someone else out of a tricky situation, raising money to support a cause, or volunteering to assist in a community effort.
Compassion comes from an external trigger. In order to experience compassion, you must first become aware of the problem or situation that evokes this feeling. Compassion doesn’t start internally.
Difference Between Passion vs. Compassion
There are several differences between passion and compassion. Here are four key differences between these two emotions.
Individual Focus vs. Other-Centric
Passion is internal and individually focused. Your passion is about how the person or situation makes you feel. Conversely, compassion is others-focused. It is more about how you can help other people than about what the object of the emotion can do for you.
Motivation and Drive
When you feel passion, you are motivated to pursue the person or thing because of a benefit for yourself. Your enthusiasm comes from the way the item or person makes you feel inside. The desire to have it is what drives you.
Compassion comes from an awareness of the distress of another person. An internal desire to relieve that stress is key, but the main reason why you would take action is because of an external motivation.
Intensity and Duration
Passion tends to be more intense than compassion, and it can often last longer. Because there is no end in sight when you have passion, and you can continue to feel passion for the person or thing, you don’t have a reason to walk away from it.
Compassion tends to be less intense. It can also have an ending point. When you succeed in helping the other person, bringing relief from their stress, the sense of compassion may lessen.
Applicability in Different Areas of Life
Passion and compassion can play roles in various aspects of life. However, people tend to feel passion in their romantic life, and they tend to feel compassion when dealing with people outside of their main romantic partner. Compassion can be felt for complete strangers, while passion tends to be for things or people close to the person.
Importance of Balancing Both Emotions
Neither passion nor compassion are better than the other. Each has its place and can be a strong motivator to make positive changes in life. You need a balance between the two to become a balanced individual.
If you have too much passion, it may drive you to treat others poorly as you seek to attain the thing you are passionate about. If you have too much compassion, you can be too helpful to others, preventing them from taking responsibility for their own actions. Similarly, too little passion can prevent you from feeling motivated to achieve, while too little compassion can make you hard-hearted and difficult to be around.
Like most areas of life, this is one area where you need balance. Both compassion and passion have a place in making you a successful person.
Impact of Passion & Compassion on Your Well-Being
When they are in balance, passion and compassion both have a positive impact on your well-being. Positive, balanced passion can help you create positive experiences in your life, particularly if you are able to achieve success in an area of life where you feel great passion, such as in a sport or area of art, or if the passion for another person is returned.
However, too much passion can turn into obsession, and that has a negative impact on your mental health and well-being. We must guard ourselves against falling victim to having too much passion that’s not balanced with other emotions.
Compassion is essential to being a balanced, helpful person. You must feel compassion for others to find joy and meaning in life through helping people around you.
Like passion, too much compassion can have a negative impact on your well-being. In this area, excursiveness can lead to unnecessary stress as you take on the stress of others.
Embrace Mental Wellness with Jonette Dyer
How can you find the right balance between passion and compassion so you can have positive mental health and wellness? This balance can sometimes be hard to strike. If you find yourself leaning too far toward one of these two emotions, life coaching could help you bring things back in balance. Jonette Dyer offers the services of a mental health coach who can help you understand the key differences between passion and compassion and also assist you with finding the right balance between the two. Learn more about her personal coaching services, or start your journey today.
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