Sympathy. Or is it Empathy.
Sympathy: harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.It has just occurred to me that I may be frequently partaking in one of the above two. Which one? I have no clue. However, upon realizing my sympathetic/empathetic nature - I began to ponder the decisions I have made in the past and tried to determine if any were influenced by this emotion.
Empathy: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
Before we go too much further, it is important to identify the etymology of these words; since true understanding comes from the past, we must fully understand the past to truly understand the meaning of these words.
- The root of both words is the Greek pathos which refers to suffering, feeling and emotion
- Syn is the prefix and refers to togetherness
- While pathos may refer to both words in root, the real root of empathy is in Germanic translation with Einfühlung as the root word
- Fühlung meaning feeling or passion when translated to Greek empatheia.
- Ein refers to "in"
In conclusion - sympathy refers to sharing an emotion with someone, generally a sad emotion. Empathy refers to the understanding of a feeling and why the person may feel that way.
So now we get back to the story. Have any of my major decisions been impacted by a sympathetic or empathetic tone? Looking back, I can say that when I chose to leave RWD, my biggest hesitation was leaving the people I had come so close to. I knew deep down that I had to do what was best for me, but on the other hand, I felt terrible for the pain that I thought I would cause (confusing eh?). Some may say it is arrogant of me to believe I would hurt those people simply by changing jobs. However, if one of your friends from work left, how would you feel? If you would be sad and you would miss having that secondary level to the relationship, would you not feel sad? In this case, empathy would be the right word because I was not yet sharing in the emotion, rather, I was experience this emotion vicariously through thoughts of how I would potentially feel in their shoes.
Yet, I am not completely satisfied with this answer. Surely it must be sympathy since I was sharing in a feeling, yet... it has to be empathy because I was experiencing this emotion vicariously. However, I was experiencing this emotion vicariously through my own thoughts and possibly old emotions. If I was thinking back to when other friends left the job, and recalling those emotions, then wasn't I just sympathizing with myself?
The whole idea is confusing and I'm not sure if it even requires this much thought. Most people would just say, "Uh, who cares. You made up your mind and you can't do anything about it. Why dwell on past emotions?"
The only response I can give those people, "I think too much."
So now we get back to the story. Have any of my major decisions been impacted by a sympathetic or empathetic tone? Looking back, I can say that when I chose to leave RWD, my biggest hesitation was leaving the people I had come so close to. I knew deep down that I had to do what was best for me, but on the other hand, I felt terrible for the pain that I thought I would cause (confusing eh?). Some may say it is arrogant of me to believe I would hurt those people simply by changing jobs. However, if one of your friends from work left, how would you feel? If you would be sad and you would miss having that secondary level to the relationship, would you not feel sad? In this case, empathy would be the right word because I was not yet sharing in the emotion, rather, I was experience this emotion vicariously through thoughts of how I would potentially feel in their shoes.
Yet, I am not completely satisfied with this answer. Surely it must be sympathy since I was sharing in a feeling, yet... it has to be empathy because I was experiencing this emotion vicariously. However, I was experiencing this emotion vicariously through my own thoughts and possibly old emotions. If I was thinking back to when other friends left the job, and recalling those emotions, then wasn't I just sympathizing with myself?
The whole idea is confusing and I'm not sure if it even requires this much thought. Most people would just say, "Uh, who cares. You made up your mind and you can't do anything about it. Why dwell on past emotions?"
The only response I can give those people, "I think too much."
posted by David Malloy @ 2:07 PM
1 Comments:
I empathize, Malloy, I really do. :P
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