But empathy and kindness are not synonymous, and neither are empathy and compassion. Kindness describes how we treat someone, either in word or deed. Compassion means to suffer with someone who’s struggling. Both kindness and compassion are necessary components of love. But empathy literally means to be in the feelings of another person. Empathy by itself is neither loving nor kind; it’s just an emotion. Love, on the other hand, is a conscious choice to seek good for another person.
