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Does sympathy take effort?

substitute

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My trouble is I sympathize too much too easily... and therefore find it impossible really to judge anyone... which you'd think was a good thing, but it gets me into trouble sometimes, cos really people say that's a good quality until it's applied to them - when you refuse to take sides when they wanted you to take their side. Not disagreeing with anyone makes you assumed to disagree with everyone.

Though I sympathize easily, cos I find it easy to imagine myself in someone else's shoes, knowing what's the best thing to do, that's a bit trickier...
 

BerberElla

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My trouble is I sympathize too much too easily... and therefore find it impossible really to judge anyone... which you'd think was a good thing, but it gets me into trouble sometimes, cos really people say that's a good quality until it's applied to them - when you refuse to take sides when they wanted you to take their side. Not disagreeing with anyone makes you assumed to disagree with everyone.

Though I sympathize easily, cos I find it easy to imagine myself in someone else's shoes, knowing what's the best thing to do, that's a bit trickier...

That is such a good point, I hate being stuck in the middle. I have been accused by friends and family of not being on their side because I have tried to explain the other persons position to them, mostly in my role as the peacemaker.

If that happens though, I stop feeling sympathy for the person making those accusations to me, since their immaturity makes them unworthy of it.
 

substitute

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That is such a good point, I hate being stuck in the middle. I have been accused by friends and family of not being on their side because I have tried to explain the other persons position to them, mostly in my role as the peacemaker.

If that happens though, I stop feeling sympathy for the person making those accusations to me, since their immaturity makes them unworthy of it.

Ah, that's where we differ then, cos I tend to think the opposite - that their immaturity explains their irrational behaviour - I don't feel like immaturity is something people do on purpose, or that it's something you can judge someone as a bad person for. People grow up and mature at different paces depending on their life experiences, so to me, realizing they're immature is just a cue to adapt my approach to them. I figure, cutting them off won't teach them a lesson if they're too immature to perceive the reason why it's happened - in their mind it will only 'prove' that I'm against them and that they're in the right. So I figure all the more reason to stick with it and try instead to break through the mental barriers.

I'm too bloody forgiving lol My signature roughly means "people get themselves into the shit - too good = too stupid", and I'm talking about myself! lol
 

BerberElla

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Ah, that's where we differ then, cos I tend to think the opposite - that their immaturity explains their irrational behaviour - I don't feel like immaturity is something people do on purpose, or that it's something you can judge someone as a bad person for. People grow up and mature at different paces depending on their life experiences, so to me, realizing they're immature is just a cue to adapt my approach to them.

I'm too bloody forgiving lol My signature roughly means "people get themselves into the shit - too good = too stupid", and I'm talking about myself! lol


Good point, I will try harder to see it that way too the next time it happens. :)

Usually it takes me a few days before I begin to understand the person who reacted badly to my being fair, in the instant that it happens though, I think my distaste is stamped clearly across my face.
 

WickedQueen

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Sympathy is a very hard thing to do for me. I have to faking it all the time because... well... I don't have any sympathy to anyone, at all. While the society give the ethical-pressure for me to faking it.

I don't like to see or hear people crying or whining, no matter what causes that. I don't like visiting ill people at the hospital. I don't like comforting sad people. I don't even know what to say to make those people feel better.

I remember when my bestfriend broke up with her boyfriend about 2 years ago. She cried and whining and repeat the same old sad story... and all that melancholy things only made me feelt like I'm about to puke. So I just looked at her, pretending that I'm listening to her, but actually I was thinking about another matter and I don't give any f****** care of her misery.


.
 

Mole

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I was wondering about this because sometimes I see people 'rationing' how much they sympathise based on things like how deserving the other person is, that kind of thing. Whereas for me it is pretty much automatic to step into the shoes of other people and try and see how they feel, even to my own detriment. I do have my blindspots though, where giving sympathy to a person does take effort, I'm just wondering if some people have much bigger blind spots.

Edit: I may be a bit off on my understanding of empathy vs sympathy, empathy is experiencing the feelings of others yourself and sympathy is understanding (or attempting to understand) the feelings of others but not necessarily feeling them yourself, is that right?

Sympathy is natural.

Mothers sympathise with their babies and their babies sympathise with them.

Sympathy is beautiful.

And sympathy is natural.

While empathy can only be learnt in a formal setting, like learning to read and write at school.

So empathy is no more natural than literacy.

No one is born able to read and write, while we are all born able to sympathise - our very existence depends upon it.

And just as no one is born able to read and write, no one is born able to empathise.

So sympathy is natural while empathy is as unnatural as reading and writing.

How odd we are all compelled by law to go to school to learn to read and write, but not one of us has been compelled to learn to empathise.

So it is no wonder that each one of us is literate, but very few of us indeed are empathic.

So perhaps it is not so surprising that we elide the difference between sympathy and empathy.

After all, who wants to admit they are illiterate or unempathic?
 

Amargith

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Empathy, on the other hand, I just cannot do. When someone else's pain oozes onto or into me I feel like I've been set aflame after gasoline has been poured over my head. I just want to stop, drop and roll...or run far, far away.

We all do ;)
Empathy is a blessing and a curse. You can truly soar on someone's good feelings, but it can also feel like you're being flayed alive, and your natural instinct is to run from that.

The truly skilled are able to use empathy to get a precise idea of what the other person is going through, and are then able to move past the pain using sympathy: if the pain is already this bad for you...it must be even worse for the person who's actually experiencing. And although removing yourself from that person could end your pain, it doesn't end theirs, which is the real objective.

So yes, sympathy can definitely require a lot of effort, and worse.
 

Mole

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We all do ;)
Empathy is a blessing and a curse. You can truly soar on someone's good feelings, but it can also feel like you're being flayed alive, and your natural instinct is to run from that.

The truly skilled are able to use empathy to get a precise idea of what the other person is going through, and are then able to move past the pain using sympathy: if the pain is already this bad for you...it must be even worse for the person who's actually experiencing. And although removing yourself from that person could end your pain, it doesn't end theirs, which is the real objective.

So yes, sympathy can definitely require a lot of effort, and worse.

This is completely confusing sympathy with empathy.

Sympathy is natural, while empathy is unnatural but uniquely helpful.

However the price you pay for confusing empathy with sympathy is that you will never even think to formally learn to empathise.
 

BerberElla

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This is completely confusing sympathy with empathy.

Sympathy is natural, while empathy is unnatural but uniquely helpful.

However the price you pay for confusing empathy with sympathy is that you will never even think to formally learn to empathise.

How is empathy unnatural? isn't it very natural for certain types? :shock:
 

Mole

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How is empathy unnatural? isn't it very natural for certain types? :shock:

Sympathy means to feel the same as, while empathy means to know what the other is feeling, without feeling the same yourself.

As they say, feeling are contagious, and mothers immediately feel the feelings of their babies, and babies feel the feeling of their mothers. This is called maternal bonding and almost all mothers and babies do this naturally without any training.

So to do the opposite - to know what the other is feeling, but without feeling it yourself is unnatural. It is counter-intuitive.

For instance learning to speak your language at home at your mother's knee is intuitive and natural. But to learn to read and write you are compelled by law to leave your home and mother and go to an institution with specially trained staff.

So learning to speak your language at home is intuitive, and being compelled to learn to read and write in an institution is counter-intuitive.

In exactly the same way, sympathy is intuitive while empathy is counter-intuitive.

The problem is that almost no one is compelled to learn empathy except some in the helping professions, so very few people have had any experience of empathy.

And never having experienced empathy, they confuse it with something they know and understand, namely, sympathy.

And of course there is vanity involved, as no one wants to consider themselves as unempathic.

In fact in the New Age movement we have very sympathetic people calling themselves, "empaths".
 

prplchknz

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That is such a good point, I hate being stuck in the middle. I have been accused by friends and family of not being on their side because I have tried to explain the other persons position to them, mostly in my role as the peacemaker.

If that happens though, I stop feeling sympathy for the person making those accusations to me, since their immaturity makes them unworthy of it.

When I was a kid I was always the peace maker, and I always felt I was being pulled in two directions because I would sympathize with both sides. Now I just tell them to deal with it themselves, and I don't care. It's not that I don't care, I just refuse to be put in the middle of things* anymore.

*obvisiouly if its a life and death situation, then I'll be more willing to get involved, but the pettier things I'd rather not.
 

BerberElla

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Sympathy means to feel the same as, while empathy means to know what the other is feeling, without feeling the same yourself.


I was so sure you were wrong, but having looked up the definitions of both words in the dictionary, you are infact right. :cheese:

Which means that I have been confused about the two terms for a very very long time lol.

Thanks victor. :)
 

Amargith

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I was so sure you were wrong, but having looked up the definitions of both words in the dictionary, you are infact right. :cheese:

Which means that I have been confused about the two terms for a very very long time lol.

Thanks victor. :)

+1

Odd though, coz those terms are commonly used the other way around.
 

Mole

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I was so sure you were wrong, but having looked up the definitions of both words in the dictionary, you are infact right. :cheese:

Which means that I have been confused about the two terms for a very very long time lol.

Thanks victor. :)

You are not alone. Most people confuse the two terms.

What I find interesting is why there is so much universal confusion.

Also I am personally interested in the teaching and learning of empathy and have invented a way of doing it on the internet.

The only problem is that almost everyone thinks they are already empathic and have no need to learn to empathise.

But of course what they are good at, and what they understand, is sympathy.

And I am sure you can sympathise with that.
 

Amargith

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I agree with you that it is an art to learn how to not only feel another person's feelings, but be able to look beyond the pain and actually put it on 'hold' as such and still use that experience, in order to actually do something productively...whatever the right dictionary terms for it may be :D
 

Snow Turtle

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Yeah... I'm not going to engage in the empathy vs sympathy arguement. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong however but my current understanding:

Empathy - Emotionally connected to the other persons experiences based on previous experience.
Empathy - Yet an old person who experienced pain a long time ago, can be empathetic without experiencing the pain. Therefore it's just deeper emotional understanding.

Having said that it would make sense that empathy need not be about experiencing the pain, but just deeper identification of the event.

Sympathy - Intellectual understanding and connection of the other person experience.
Sympathy - Desire to offer comfort.

Therefore empathy can be with or without sympathy.

Based on those definitions:
It's easy for me to feel sympathy within a person as long as I'm reasonably empathetic however it's much more difficult to express sympathy towards a person. That's the part that requires effort.

Example: When I heard about a friend who had been cheated on, it was so far away from my experiences that I could only rationalize the pain that one might be experiencing if in their situation. The same applies to the whole 9/11 incident, I'm ashamed to say that I wasn't connected to the event as tragic as I understood it to be. This has caused me to think that I'm just a cold emotionless person.

However when it comes to things like bullying or being social excluded, I know what it's like to be lonely therefore when I see other people in that situation. Empathy naturally rises within of me, and then comes along sympathy but usually I take a more proactive approach than just offering basic condolescences. This is usually where the whole "protector and helper of the underdog" mentality and feeling comes from.

Lastly even if I haven't been in a situation itself. Watching someone in tears right in front of me, while I have never experienced the situation like the first scenario. It will usually trigger empathy, however it's empathy towards general pain rather than pain induced by X event. Which further triggers sympathy... and the desire to help but not knowing how to do so.
 

prplchknz

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ok so if most of the world, including myself, confuses those words why not just officially switch the definitions? problem solved.
 

Mole

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I agree with you that it is an art to learn how to not only feel another person's feelings, but be able to look beyond the pain and actually put it on 'hold' as such and still use that experience, in order to actually do something productively...whatever the right dictionary terms for it may be :D

I would emphasize that you do not feel the other person's feelings when you are empathizing.

You only feel the other's feeling when you are sympathizing.

However although you don't feel the other's feelings, you do know what they are feeling, and very important, you usually let them know you know what they are feeling. So they know they are being understood.
 

Mole

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ok so if most of the world, including myself, confuses those words why not just officially switch the definitions? problem solved.

This would certainly be convenient. But we would have to change many languages, right back to the Ancient Greeks who first made the distinction between sympathy and empathy.

We perceive by making distinctions. And so the age-old distinction between sympathy and empathy enables us to see.

So distinctions are more than just conveniences, they are the way we see.

And the more distinctions, the more we see.

And sharp distinctions are like a good pair of spectacles, they bring the world crisply into focus.
 
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