Often discussed as something that we might do (or perhaps should do) to be a good person, feeling empathetic helps us make connections with others and understand them better. It’s different from having sympathy for someone, which means to look at their suffering from the outside and feel sorry or sad for them. Empathy is feeling someone else’s pain or seeing through their eyes. It’s also a precursor to compassion, which is empathy in action—a commitment to doing something that relieves someone else’s suffering. Read more from Edutopia.
