Values Series 3: Empathy
Welcome to this 4-part (minimum) series where I delve into the definitions and practical applications of my values list! My four top values in no particular order are: justice, peace, empathy, and people. How did I come to those four words in particular? I worked with my own coach! How do I feel about those words? Complicated as all hell! One thing I've learned is that words don't actually have the meaning assigned by the dictionary - they have the weight of all of our lived experiences behind them. You probably won't define these words as values the same way I will, and that's fine! More than that, that's wonderful! We might share words, but not definitions, or have the exact same values but call them wildly different things. Isn't the human experience beautifully varied? The third value in our list is the oft-overused term, empathy. For me, empathy is simple: the capacity to understand and respect the emotions of others. That definition initially felt a li...