The Incessant Woes of Limited Empathy

Time and again, life poses questions. Sometimes, if you are lucky enough, the questions are simple. The answers are obvious. The choices are crystal clear. More often, the questions are not so easy. Life has a way of screening difficult questions one after the other. Just like one of those exams that increase the difficulty level with each correctly answered question, so goes with life. It presents a tough time and simultaneously provides the courage to deal with it. However, just when you have gathered the pieces and begin to feel that the tough phase is over, more daunting questions seem to surface. That’s the vicious circle called “Life”.

Interestingly, the questions posed to us seem to be more difficult, pressing, stressful and draining than the ones posed to others. We peak into each other’s lives to ascertain the difficulty level of their questions, and almost always jump to the conclusion that our questions are more strenuous than theirs. The burdensome choices. The awkward answers. The adverse circumstances. All seem to be more hostile in our own life. The other lives also seem to be going through tough times, but everything seems to be under control. At least from the outside. In contrast, our life seems to have been struck by a hurricane that refuses to leave. That’s what happens most of the time. We fail to relate to other’s troubled lives because we have so much to deal with in our own life.

Yet, there are times when the trouble in someone else’s voice is enough to initiate a sea of emotions within us. Have you ever felt a lump forming in your throat just imagining a loved one (even though miles away, geographically) in distress? Has the thought of someone dear being in grief made you so sick that your own troubles ceased to bother you anymore? Have you found yourself drowning in depression because of an emotional loss that did not happen to you, but to someone you cannot imagine losing?

Yes, these are the moments when you reach the levels of empathy that can possibly be reached by your soul. In these flashes, we do not need to push ourselves to feel the way another human is feeling. It just happens. Even to such extents at times, that you cannot stop feeling all the bad emotions; that have nothing to do with you at all; just because another human is going through all those emotions. So how come empathy seems to come so effortlessly to us in some instants, and just seems to touch-and-go in other?!

Possibly, most of us are capable of limited empathy only. Probably, we are only moved by the troubles and struggles of a few. We do get disturbed by the sight of a disabled man who was begging on the street, or a two year old who was raped, or an entire country that was dismantled by an earthquake. But the disturbance seems to have a very short life. It leaves. Soon. Very soon. Conversely, when we find our best friend going through an emotional loss, or a sibling who fails to achieve the dream of their life by an inch, or a spouse who has a strained relationship with their parent, we just can’t help but feel for them. We don’t just stand with them. We become who they are. We go through what they are going through. We become as exhausted as they are. And with time, we even covet the healing that we intend to provide them. That is empathy too. But that’s the limited empathy that we possess. That’s the reason we are not always able to relate to each other’s difficulties. That’s why we always find the questions in their lives easier. Maybe that’s why the grass always looks greener on the other side.

So would it take make our lives easier if we could enhance the compass of our empathy? Would it make us better human beings? Would it even be possible to do so? Is it something that we are simply born with? Or is it something that we inculcate as our hearts entangle with other hearts? Did Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul or Florence Nightingale deliberately widen their empathy circles to include everyone around? Don’t know. Can’t say. Probably these too are some of those questions. The ones with no clear answers..