Personally I believe that on the empathy continuum I stand in-between ‘Compassion’ and ‘Empathy’. This is because I think that I can react a bit differently depending on the situation. Recently reading an article on how there is an improvement in the lgbtq+ community in India, I was able to show compassion for them. Having lived in India and knowing a couple of people who have faced problems in terms of ‘coming out’ I was able to understand the issue that they were going through and how the fact that there was an improvement is a huge thing in India. Moreover, I have personally delved deeply into this particular topic and so when I read this article I was able to use the idea of outrospection and look at the situation by performing the imaginative act of stepping into another person’s shoes and looking at the situation from their perspective. In this case, the situation being the struggles of being an openly gay person in India. If this was maybe another situation in which I had also experienced similar struggles then I would have shown more empathy rather than compassion as I would have been able to resonate with them better instead of having to ‘imagine’ it.
