The first virtue I was ever taught was empathy - the ability to understand and share the feelings of someone. Sometimes I find that others lack knowledge in the differences between sympathy and empathy and what it truly means to feel both.
Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams, changed my outlook of empathy through her beautifully written prose:
"Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us—a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain—it’s also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It’s made of exertion, that dowdier cousin of impulse. Sometimes we care for another because we know we should, or because it’s asked for, but this doesn’t make our caring hollow. The act of choosing simply means we’ve committed ourselves to a set of behaviors greater than the sum of our individual inclinations: I will listen to his sadness, even when I’m deep in my own. To say “going through the motions”—this isn’t reduction so much as acknowledgment of the effort—the labor, the motions, the dance—of getting inside another person’s state of heart or mind. This confession of effort chafes against the notion that empathy should always arise unbidden, that genuine means the same thing as unwilled, that intentionality is the enemy of love. But I believe in intention and I believe in work. I believe in waking up in the middle of the night and packing our bags and leaving our worst selves for our better ones."
This idea of "extending ourselves" really got to me on an emotional level. Our emotions are constructed from infinite series of physical and mental stimuli. As humans, we are emotionally capable of much more than we expect. Emotions often come from physical experiences - heartbreak, disappointment in others, anger - so how can we change our emotions towards others if we have been inclined to stop caring?
In order to change emotions we need to understand the difference between sympathizing towards someone and developing empathy. Sympathy is classified as the feeling of pity or sorrow, but empathy exceeds pity. By choosing empathize we choose to be cautious of people's feelings, giving us more emotional diversity.
"I will listen to his sadness, even when I'm deep in my own." It is so beautiful that even in our darkest moments, we can still feel compassion for others. Empathy is about putting ourselves emotionally in other people's situations which is an idea that can make human relationships so much more healthy for us to make sense of one another. Simply feeling sorry for another person allows us to be content with our emotional choices, never extending ourselves to appreciate others.
I would not be so hurt by people if I understood their choices by the emotions they felt. But then I also thought to myself, I would be so much happier if those people could do the same for me.
If you understood how I felt, maybe you would not have chosen to hurt me the way you did.
If you were empathetic, you would understand how it feels.
If you were empathetic, your brain would send a fire of synapses exact to mine and for a small moment in time we could understand each other.
