Empathetic Overdrive
“That dumbass driver just….” I know many of us could finish that sentence rather colorfully. Or how about this one: “Bob makes my life so miserable at work. Why should I have to do his job and mine just so things get done right?” Or maybe you didn’t have your coffee yet and someone was just too perky, thereby causing gleefully vicious daydreams of putting their head in the toilet bowl and flushing it. I confess I am the overly joyous morning person so I would appreciate any patience you could muster. Everybody has experienced feelings like these, emotions that are projected outward from yourself toward someone or something else, but what about empathy? What about taking the feelings of another inward? According to Wikipedia, “empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or to in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.” Have you ever experienced someone else’s emotio