Empathy

EMPATHY (n.) - the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and/or vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and/or experience of another without having those feelings, thoughts, and experience explicitly communicated; also : the capacity for this

Perhaps an odd subject for a holiday associated with "tough", and "hard", and "dark", but today I was reminded of the importance of empathy. It is empathy that enables us to show compassion to others, that allows us to anticipate the needs of those important to us, that helps us communicate our love and friendship.

Utter crap, you say? Let me put it this way, would something be lost from the gesture if you had to ask someone to open a door for you? To bring you flowers? To say "I love you"? Unless you are one of those gifted people who spontaneously do (the exactly right) things for others, empathy is key.

There's a person in my life lacking in empathy. Noticeably, consistently, painfully lacking in empathy. I've known this for ages and I also know that they're fabulous otherwise. It's just that the empathy-lack crops up in unexpected places, or with astonishing severity, and knocks me on my butt.

And that pisses me off. Today I was inwardly stewing over their empathy-lack and the unfairness of it, the predictable, unchanging nature of it. But after I stewed a bit, I realized this must be harder on them than it is on me. Imagine going through life pissing people off and not knowing how you did it?

So, next time, I'm going to borrow a sentiment from one of my favorite bloggers and inwardly repeat "God bless their little heart" until I'm no longer upset. Or I fall asleep (whichever).