Cautious empathy (micro blog)

Firstly, what is empathy? The ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and then preanticipate their reaction to a particular situation.

Empathy is an invaluable skill. Very few actually have it but those who do need to ensure they use it cautiously. Falling into over empathizing is common.

It is not always that the person on the other end understands and values your empathy. Some don’t really care for how you are trying to monitor your behaviour in order to not hurt the sentiments of the other person.

This is when one starts to feel bad about empathizing with someone. But you need to understand that the real problem is with your judgement of where to emphasize and how much.

Empathizing everywhere doesn’t help as all have their set of problems and concerns while you have your own. Thinking about their’s may lead you into undermining your own set of concerns.

Cautious empathizing is extremely important else it will be very often that you’ll be left feeling sad and dejected for empathizing with the wrong person.

Always remember that if you are good to people then people don’t have any obligation to be good to you in return. Empathize carefully at the right place with the right person, only then will you start reaping the benefits of a true empath.

-ChoubeySahab