Your attitude and actions provoke reactions in people. Give out what you want to come back to you. Kindness, compassion, and empathy are skills that can be learned and improved. Ethics and empathy go together. It’s hard mistreat people when you let yourself care about their pain.
People respond differently to kindness than they do to hostility. Try it and see. Consistent kindness will eventually defuse hostility. (“Love your enemies.”) When people sense that you genuinely care about them, they open up to you. To stop someone’s hostility, humbly listen with an open heart and refuse to blame or be offended.
The more we’re aware of someone’s struggles, the stronger the connection between us. Empathy replaces apathy when we become acutely aware of someone’s pain. Empathy isn’t earned. No human life is unworthy of your concern. Some indicators of a lack of empathy are: unwillingness to listen, blame, arrogance, and being easily offended.
We don’t understand people’s behavior when we’re unaware of their pain. Everyone you encounter has pain in life. Notice it and allow your heart to care. When you let yourself feel someone’s pain, you’ll automatically treat them better. If you learn to use your thoughts to create empathy inside you, you’ll feel better about people.
To intentionally harm someone is to deny that his life matters. Empathy is being sensitive to the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another person. To sympathize with people’s emotions, ask them questions to learn more about them. You can find something to like about any human being if you look for it.
People’s opinions needn’t be a threat. There’s something you can learn from every point of view. You don’t have to agree with people to make a sincere effort to understand them. No matter what anyone says, you don’t have to feel personally offended by it.
