{"id":42176,"date":"2016-02-11T21:22:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T01:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42176"},"modified":"2020-07-18T21:22:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T01:22:15","slug":"empathy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=42176","title":{"rendered":"Empathy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I should be in a pretty good mood right now.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying that I\u2019m in a foul mood by any stretch of the imagination, it\u2019s just the fact that instead of being happy and in a pleasant mood, I feel kind of in the middle somewhere lately.\u00a0 In fact, earlier this week, I had some pretty great news that broke, that I will eventually start sharing with my six readers and maybe over social media if I feel like it.\u00a0 Unfortunately, earlier this week there was also some terribly bad news, that anyone willing to scroll back a few posts would realize, and it certainly has held a lot of weight to why I feel like how I do lately.\u00a0 If anything at all, it\u2019s the conflicting ends of the spectrums on the two events that have me somewhere in the middle, albeit leaning towards the wrong direction, that is preventing me from feeling absolutely depressed and somber.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing is, even without the tragic news from earlier this week, I think I\u2019d still be emotionally weighed down, because aside from the super bad news from earlier this week, there are still things going on with various other people close to me and out there, that I\u2019m aware of, and are aware that they\u2019re bringing them down.\u00a0 This makes me feel less happy, because I know there are people I care about feeling down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such is the nature of those with empathy, but I\u2019m beginning to think that I might just be\u00a0overly<\/em>\u00a0empathetic, if such is even possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I like to think I\u2019m smart enough to acknowledge that the things that are making me feel brought down are all things that are almost entirely, out of my control, due to the fact that ultimately I cannot change history, materialize money, cure cancer or strike problems off the metaphorical record of the world.\u00a0 Yet the one piece of great news that I have was almost entirely something that I could control, and I did control it, and found success that I am most certainly happy, excited and feeling triumphant about.<\/span><\/p>\n

However because I\u2019m clearly such an empathetic person, even the biggest victories become hollow and less warranting of celebration, because of the troubles of those I care about.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if this a trait that would warrant criticism, or borderline be considered negative about me, because I\u2019ve always thought empathy and compassion were positive human traits to have.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it just kind of sucks, because I really am happy about my good news, but it\u2019s really bothering me that a whole lot of bad things, events, feelings and occurrences are swirling around those I care about.\u00a0 And I think it\u2019s hindering my ability to enjoy what I do have, and then I feel a little bit worse that I can\u2019t.\u00a0 I\u2019m fully aware that much of my woes which might be other peoples\u2019 woes are out of my control, but it\u2019s not so easy as flipping a switch and being absolved of empathy.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m an empathetic person.\u00a0 I guess the question is, am I overly empathetic?\u00a0 Is that even possible?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I should be in a pretty good mood right now.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying that I\u2019m in a foul mood by any stretch of the imagination, it\u2019s just the fact that instead of being happy and in a pleasant mood, I feel kind of in the middle somewhere lately.\u00a0 In fact, earlier this week, I had … Continue reading Empathy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,71,37,15],"class_list":["post-42176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-famiry","tag-job","tag-og"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42178,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42176\/revisions\/42178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}