The word “empathy” is, in its modern incarnation, typically used when we feel bad for someone or to express a sort of sympathy. We use it to convey that we recognize and feel their pain or discomfort or sorrow.
The more complex definition of the word, though, implies that we not only sympathize—feel bad for them—and we don’t only feel bad because they feel bad—a shared understanding of loss or grief—we also understand what they’re going through from their perspective. It’s imagining how the world must look through the eyes of someone different from you and then attempting to understand how what’s happening must seem from their point of view.
This is something that most of us, at some point in our lives, have found ourselves doing, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
We see a mother in a war-torn country on the news mourning the loss of a child, and we bend our brains to think, wow, if my child died? And if my home and my city were being bombed, being invaded by people with guns? I would definitely be crying more than she is; I don’t know that I’d be able to get it together enough to talk to a reporter.
Sometimes, though, we call upon this power to try to comprehend why or how something happened to us, personally, or to someone we care about. Maybe our significant other cheats on us and we find ourselves wondering what they could have been thinking, how the situation looked to them, how they were able to justify such an act.
This broader sense of empathy can be incredibly valuable if we put in the effort to get better at it and learn to apply it more frequently.
It allows us to see the bigger picture more of the time because it allows us to perceive, or at least attempt to perceive, a set of circumstances without being limited by our own bias-warped lens. It can help us recognize that, no matter how things seem to us, everyone else is probably seeing things from a somewhat or substantially different place, and thus, our perspective isn’t the only or absolute perspective.
Consequently, the application of empathy can drench us in a deluge of cold water when outrage begins to bubble up over something someone else does: a stranger cuts us off in traffic, a troll leaves a rude comment on a photo we posted online, or a significant other fails to do the dishes on their night for the third time in a row.
Defaulting to empathy means instead of tumbling from stability into rage, we step back, take a moment, and ask ourselves if there might be a good reason why that person was driving so dangerously.
Maybe they were in trouble? In a legitimate hurry, rushing to the hospital, or maybe to their job, driving fast to avoid being fired for being late because of car trouble?
Maybe that rude comment wasn’t intended for you, or wasn’t intended to come across as rude, and a typo or a lack of forethought has merely made it seem so aggressive?
Maybe your partner is not clear on how the dishwasher works, or thinks it’s your night, not theirs? Or they’re so stressed out about some other aspect of life that they’re having trouble focusing on issues like personal upkeep and home maintenance?
In some cases, after deeper assessment, you’ll find that people are just being rude or inconsiderate.
People can be mean, can be petty and angry. They will sometimes attempt to build themselves up by tearing others down, and they can try to take advantage of other people who they assume will do the dishes if they don’t, even when it’s their night to do them.
But establishing that reflex—taking a moment, post-offense, post-burst of outrage, where you step back, pause, assess, and consider alternate interpretations of what seems to be happening—gives you the opportunity to reflect, cool off your emotional, knee-jerk, angry or hurt reaction, and puzzle together a more complete picture.
That moment, by itself, is worth the effort.
But this habit also tends to lead to overall healthier levels of self-reflection, and an increased capacity to recognize which external variables you can control and which are beyond your control except in terms of how you respond to them.
A moment reserved for contextual consideration makes us more capable of responding generously, rather than pettily, angrily, or slapdashedly.
The best version of yourself is almost certainly not fueled by outrage and venom, but instead, beneficence and magnanimity.
Few, if any of us, will be able to implement this 100% of the time, of course. But the more you do it, the easier and more reflexive it becomes.
Empathy is not a power that some people are born with and others can never achieve, and it’s not an excuse to avoid conflict. It’s a means of ensuring you have better, less subjective information to work with when you act, so your actions will be more likely to reflect who you truly are.