In terms of emotional intelligence, I’m not very good with empathizing with them. It’s difficult for me to imagine myself as someone else in a particular situation dealing with emotions in the manner they are; the idea is too abstract for me to grasp. Diluting empathy, it’s still hard for me to use my own experiences to compare to them. For example, say someone is sad about a family member dying. I know what it is like to be sad, but I don’t know what it is like to specifically feel sad over a family member’s death. So in the end, I can’t empathize. I imagine that for other people it might be easier for them to exaggerate their sadness or imagine a situation in which they had to lose a family member and try and use that fantasy pain as a way to empathize, but I personally find it difficult.
Though, I am much better at sympathy. Pity and sympathy overlap in some points. However, they differ in approach. Pity would be seeing someone’s misfortune, being uncomfortable with seeing it, and being relieved that you are not dealing with that problem; it comes with the notion that there’s nothing to be done to help. Sympathy would be being concerned for someone and wanting them to be happy, along with a “sharing” of emotions. Using the above example, I know what it is like to feel sad and I know it feels bad, so I feel concerned that they feel bad but I don’t really understand what they are going through.
In my opinion, empathy seems to be more selfish and arrogant. If I was sad or in pain and someone told me they knew exactly how I felt, I would not feel comforted. We are two entirely different people. Even if the other did go through a similar experience, it would not be the exact same and they would not process it in the same way as I do. So how would they know what I’m actually feeling? Ultimately, they are presuming and projecting onto me, assuming that I am taking the same path as them when I am not. Sympathy would be closer to what I feel: similar but exact emotions. I know what it is to feel sad, so I can relate though not understand. Though, I could be taking empathy a bit too literally. I still don’t like it when people try to equate sympathy with pity and state that empathy is the better of the two. There are people who have low empathy but high sympathy and compassion, and they are not bad people for not being able to empathize with others. I think that people have taken empathy and made it into the only social skill that has impact.
