Elexus Olson

Tammy Davis

Composition 2

3 September 2019

The Importance of Empathy

Do you know the difference between empathy and sympathy? There are quite a few

people who often get those two mixed up. Let me clarify which is which, and then I’ll tell you

more about empathy. Empathy is being able to understand someone else or understand another

person’s feelings. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone else or having pity for them. Charles

Foster said, “Perhaps one of the reasons we’re so keen to deny non-human creatures minds,

consciousness and personhood is that, if they’re people, they’re embarrassingly better people

than we are”. (Foster) I think he is correct in that statement. Elephants are such empathetic

creatures; it’s amazing. You’re about to read about something that’s really personal to me so that

maybe I can help you understand more about what empathy is and how important it is in life not

only for yourself, but for others.

I found out when I was young what empathy was and how it impacts the people I come in

contact with. I feel like empathy is something not a lot of people have in this world. I went

through some experiences as a child that showed me how empathetic I am. I come from a broken

home, and when I was younger, I was only mad at one parent for the events I saw. I never got the

other side of the story, and I learned quickly how empathy works and what it is when I got the

other side. There are multiple ways to cultivate empathy, but I want to focus on one in this next

paragraph. This is the one I feel affects people the most. Humans are the only ones that have real

emotions is a lie that many people believe; if you do research and pay attention, you’ll learn that
we’re not the only ones; elephants for example have so much empathy in them. A lot of people

will be surprised to know that even animals have empathetic emotions (Foster).

In my opinion, I feel like asking people questions about themselves and genuinely

listening to their answers is a major way to cultivate empathy. More often than not, people ask

someone a question just to respond without actually understanding what that person’s response

was. When you empathize with someone, you truly understand that person, so when you’re

having a conversation about something serious, you shouldn’t just listen to respond or interrupt.

You should always listen with the intent to understand that person and where they come from. I

went through a lot with someone over the last year and a half. That’s where I believe listening to

another person to understand them comes into this. He showed me a lot, and I will soon tell you

what happened between us in hopes that maybe you will also understand how this affects

someone. It’s especially important to me to help people understand why empathy plays such a

major role in life.

This gentleman and I were seeing each other for the last year and a half. We met in

January of 2018. Him and I hit it off right away and started seeing each other. Everything was

great in the beginning, as it usually is. I learned a lot from him because I am such an empathetic

person. He shared details with me about his marriage and the way his ex-wife treated him. I

made sure I listened and understood his feelings when he talked about such personal thoughts. I

also shared details about my ex-husband and what my marriage was like for me. We both

expressed our feelings within those marriages, and the difference in him and myself is that I

listened with full intent on understanding how those experiences affected him, and how they hurt

him so that I made sure I never made him felt that way again. He only listened to respond; he

didn’t try to understand the way I felt when I went through that.
 Since he chose not to understand what I went through and how I felt going through that,

he ended up treating me not only the same way my ex did, but so much worse. He has no ounce

of empathy in him, and I have so much empathy in me that it showed through who we were and

how we cared about each other. Every time he showed me who he was, I pushed harder to prove

who I was to him because I understood him and the experience he went through, and I wanted

him to know that I would never treat him the way she treated him or make him feel the way she

did.

Our relationship took a turn for the worst and never got better. He continued to treat me

horribly, and I allowed it until recently. I put an end to it, and I’m so proud of myself for it. I

kept pushing and trying harder to show him who I was because I thought he was the same person

he was before his marriage. He just needed someone to show him that not everyone is bad, and I

empathized with him on that because I also wanted to know that not everyone is bad, but he

proved me wrong when it came to himself. Now that I’ve given you some information on us, and

we interacted face to face, I want to talk about how technology today affected our relationship

and how it lacked expressing empathy in our relationship.

As you know, a lot of people use technology quite a bit these days. It’s rare that you see

someone not on their phone, whether texting, facetiming, or on social media. Cultivating

empathy through technology would really depend on the person. I feel like it goes with whether

that person is empathetic or not personally. The guy I was seeing had no empathy when we

talked in person and definitely not through technology. When we talked on the phone or would

text, it was like it was worse. He was easily distracted on the phone and it would take him hours,

if at all, to respond to a single text. He never wanted to an actual conversation through our
phones and he knew he didn’t have to because we weren’t together, so it was easy to not talk.

Cultivating empathy through technology solely depends on if the person is empathetic or not.

Empathy is something that I think every human needs within them self. Without it, I

don’t know what your relationship with another human would be like. With the experience I

went through with the guy I was with recently; I think it’s extremely obvious to know if someone

is empathic or not. I think without empathy it won’t go remarkably well, in a friendship,

relationship, whatever kind of relationship it may be. Someone who’s not empathetic is

immensely much selfish. They do or say what they believe you want them to in order to get

something in return; they’re not worried about the other person feelings or understand them. I

hope you learned more about empathy and the way it impacts relationships, at least the way it

impacted mine. I know every relationship is different, but I really hope you know having even a

little bit of empathy is far better than having none.

 Works Cited
Foster, Charles. “If You Were an Elephant ...” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media,

19 Jan. 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/19/if-you-were-an-elephant-