Wednesday, March 19, 2008
empathy
One question my doctor asked me the first time I visited him, was this:"Do you find that you empathise with people very easily, like you feel you can understand whatever they are going through?"
I said yes. Be it in the form of my Weltschmerz, or when friends confide in me, or when virtual strangers choose me to share their painful secrets with, I somehow manage to know how they feel.
Apparently, people who suffer from clinical depression are high on empathy, which technically means "identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives."
I guess when we want to love people, help others, make life better for those in ours, we need to score high on empathy. I think this will forever be a 'good' trait of mine. Empathy.
Maybe thats why Daffy calls me a 'natural Aunt Agony'. Maybe that's why I tend to build genuine relationships with my clients, colleagues or contemporaries. Maybe that is why my words can make people cry. Maybe that's why people fall in love with me.
If you are depressed too, I hope you may eventually realise too, that empathy is a good by-product of our sickness, a blessing in disguise.
Labels: worlds