Sympathy vs. Empathy- Sympathy and empathy are two entirely different things. You can be sympathetic to something without feeling any sense of empathy about it. To put it simply, with empathy there is a feeling of connection, but with sympathy there is a disconnection that creates a noticeable distance.
To give you some perspective, watch Bene Brown on Empathy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw
With empathy comes understanding and recognizing someone’s perspective. It is about providing others with a judgement-free zone. Valuing another person’s emotions and letting them know that you recognize their struggles provides a sense of validation, that it is okay to feel a certain way. Empathy is feeling with someone. It is relating to their struggles.
Trying to give something a “silver lining” is not the way to approach or justify struggle. Connecting with people, even if it is just listening to what they have to say, is the most valuable connection you can provide for someone in their time of need.
Without connecting with other people, who are we? Who have we become? If someone else’s struggle doesn’t affect you, will you just push it aside? Stop detaching yourself. It means very little to know about millions of people who are being oppressed unless you know someone who is.
We live in a world where we are surrounded by sympathetic people who neglect to act on the empathetic connection to make a difference. We don’t take that step of putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes because we have it better than them. This is privilege. We are privileged. It is time we use that to make a difference.
Being privileged is not an insult, it is just a recognition that you have the ability to do something.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one… just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you have had” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
True empathy requires that you step outside of your own emotions to view things entirely from the perspective of the other person. It is the capacity to understand someone else’s pain like it is as meaningful as your own.
P.S. Just to quote a great man, “It is the lack of Empathy that makes it very easy for us to plunge into wars. It is the lack of empathy that allows us to ignore the homeless on the streets.” – Barrack Obama