You Have Been Doing It All Wrong, It's Empathy Not Sympathy.
You feel like you are a complete failure in front of your dad. You are diligent in your work. Still, your colleagues don't respect you.
They believe that you are a loser and you can't do anything outstanding in your work.
You have lost the spark in your love life and things are not working now.
And here you are sitting, frustrated and fatigued, thinking what's wrong with everyone?
Why the hell life sucks?
Why is everybody like that?
This happens pretty much with everyone!
Why things are so messed up in everyone's life is because people don't want to understand other people; why they do certain things.
To understand the game learn a basic difference!
Sympathy is not empathy.
Your best friend just had a breakup. She is crying her life out. What will you do?
Sympathise her?
Tell her that you feel sad for her? Everything is going to be alright?
How is that going to help her?
Let's take another example!
One of your friends is just kicked out of his job. What will you do?
Tell him that you feel sorry for him? Try to soothe him?
This is sympathising. It never solves the problem.
It will make people feel like you don't understand what they are going through and you don't care for them, except expressing some hollow words.
What people need is empathy, not sympathy, that's where most of us go wrong in life.
The one who had a breakup, needs to keep her attention somewhere else. Get absorbed in something else to forget about the bad past.
That is when you understand her and empathise with her and truly help her.
The one who has lost his job, feels sorry for himself, feeling sorry for him will not make much difference in his life.
What he needs is a new job, and if you can help him in any way, is what empathising is, and it is what he really needs.
The world revolves around sympathy, that's why the world is so much messed up.
Avoid sympathising and pick up empathising even if you don't want to help anyone but to understand someone.
Clear The Mess With Your Parents.
Your dad thinks that you don't have a promising career.
There has been some sour air in between you two for some time now.
Things have gone so bad that you don't talk to him anymore.
Is this what you want in your life?
And let alone career, if there is any difference in between you two, is this the kind of relationship you want with him?
Probably not, right?
What you need is understanding why he feels like that, you don't have to like it, but you need to understand it.
You need to understand why he doesn't like your lifestyle.
The moment you empathise with him, you will understand why he behaves like that with you.
That's how empathising do wonders, you start to understand people from their point of view.
So now you know how your parents think, you can explain them about your conditions, your job, your situations in a different way. They will definitely understand.
Break The Ice In Your Relationship.
Some serious differences have appeared in your relationship?
Have you lost the feelings for your loved ones?
Most of the time, the case is pretty much different, yet always the same.
Once you empathise with your loved ones, you will understand why they are behaving like that.
Maybe they feel that you don't spend enough time with them, maybe they feel insecure, or maybe the difference is because of the progress you have made in your job, the jealousy!
There can be a lot of maybe's. But to find the solution, you need to empathise with them, talk with them, more and more, and then they will tell you what they feel.
Once you know what they are insecure about, you can figure out the solution.
Making Your Job Better And Easy.
If people around you don't like you, it will be hard for you to work.
Your boss hates you and your colleagues will backstab you at the first chance they will get.
You are insecure at your workplace.
But why?
You know you can't trust anyone, that's the result, but figuring out why you can't trust anyone will help you find the solution for your situation.
It is possible that your boss thinks that you are too good at your job, you will get promoted, and after that, he has to work for you. You will return the favours then. So he tries his best to make you leave your job.
Once you know if this is the case, you can create friendly ties with him and acknowledge him that if you ever get promoted, he will always be your mentor/friend.
It will ease things out.
You need to think like your boss if you want to find the solution, make things better.
Your colleagues may think that you get more credit than you deserve.
In this case, you must try to appreciate them whenever possible in front of the people who matter. This will create a friendly environment for you.
Whatever the case, whatever the situation is, it is always created by the people.
Once you learn how to understand people, you will know what to do.
Empathy always serves the purpose.
Pretty well written man.
I think most people are guilty of this though, and that even people who are aware this is true like me and you do it from time to time... it's like an auto-response, dont you think?
Yeah, it is like an autoresponse. Nobody can get away from it like nobody can get away from proud, anger, greed. But we can try to move to empathy and avoid sympathy.
The only thing we can do is try.
Thanks.
The empathy over sympathy is perfectly stated. This especially reminds me of these government speeches upon terrorist attacks, where they express their sympathy for all the families involved, say sorry, and two weeks later nobody feels responsible anymore. And it's so repetitive, always the same words, no empathy, no real emotion in it. Just words spoken from a written form. No wonder this doesn't bring change.
On a more personal scale with relationships, this is also the reason why so few people are good listeners while most people always have a good cry on these few listeners' shoulders. They search for empathy but don't give it at the same time. The typical "taking without giving principle".
Keep it up!
Yepp, listening is the most important thing to understand empathy. Very few people listen attentively.
At one point I read something like sympathy was a very low quality copy of empathy.
Much has been talked about this term and is that little by little we have realized that feeling empathy for other people apart from contributing to alleviate the discomfort them that may be going through will help us develop the so-called Emotional Intelligence.
It not only involves imagining how them feel or feel bad for the individual who suffers, it is more to know, understand, identify and not solve problems but to provide support and tools that allow you to deal with that situation.
Good post!
That's exactly right. We need to alleviate others pain in order solve problems.
Sympathy is not empathy
very nice post by @looftee really deserve a huge volum of comments
Request to all steemit member to frop their comments so @looftee can be rewarded for his excellent work
appreciate the gesture!
welcome buddy
Sometimes all a person wants is an empathetic ear; all he or she needs is to talk it out. Just offering a listening ear and an understanding heart for his or her suffering can be a big comfort.
Truly said.
As an empath, I approve this message. :) Thanks for sharing your perspective @looftee. Many people do not know the difference between empathy and sympathy.
welcome, many people know the difference, but still, don't understand the difference.
good
thanks.
Nice post!
thanks.