Is compassion and empathy good or bad?

Thank you to @calaber24p for his thought provoking post on empathy and compassion. And it’s one that I thought is a good discussion to have, “Can Beneficial Emotions, Like Compassion and Empathy, Hurt Us In Our Modern Day Society?”

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Well, to me that question can be answered either yes, and no. And It depends on your experience.

Let’s start with the no:

I was born with a huge amount of emotional intelligence. So much that I can basically tell you the feelings of everyone in the room we sit in. I feel it intensely.

And as a young adult, perhaps 18 or 19, I began to develop a sense of, “wow, I’ve been there before, I really feel bad for you dude”

Yet as I had no-one to properly train me in my worldly ways; My Mum hasn’t a clue, and my Dad was never interested in investing in my future,

So I was alone to figure it all out for myself,

And I walked around life feeling bad or good for people who were in situations that I had been in,

Perhaps someone had just been dumped,

Or maybe a new job was on the table,

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But the main thing I was the go to person of the day for processing my friend’s feelings,

Sometimes I’d even pick up a random stranger,

Needless to say I was invaluable to my friends, always there for them, always helping,

And as a young empath / compassionate man I had no idea how to protect myself, and most of the time I ended up being hurt.

Why?

Well, I was the go to person. No-one gave a shit about how “I” was feeling. People would seek out me for their needs, and their needs alone,

And from there I developed a few semi-detachment issues; I would believe that if I was helping people in my life then they were my friends,

And if they didn’t want to know me then that was frustrating, because, 

“shit, I’m a totally nice guy, right?”

And I’d go out of my way to make them happy.

It soon got to the point where I was afraid to say no to people, and in the end people would take what they want from me and get away with it.

So that’s the bad. That can happen, as an empath with loads of compassion.

The good.

At some point in my life I learned boundaries. I learned how far people could push me before I felt unsafe.

Unsafe in the manner that it was having a negative impact on my mentality, 

When I get angry, that’s negative,

I learned how to be empathic and embrace new people, and new communities, all the while maintaining my distance

Let me tell you distance and boundaries are everything when it comes to empathy and compassion,

To stop people walking all over me I had to learn how to say, 

“actually, no, that’s enough. I won’t participate anymore.”

And there are people out there that like to take and walk over everyone. It’s human nature. Some people are born into this world that take and mow us over like we are grass and they are a lawnmower

And it’s tough, especially if I have no option but to work with these people,

But I learned to manipulate my surroundings for the greater good. To change the way I word things and the positive impact my communication can have on even the toughest of individuals.

I ended up working with a psychopath once; know what I did?

I licked his balls, gave him the hand job of his life. Before he knew it he was exploding his semen all over my face during the most intense orgasm he’d ever had, figuratively speaking of course.

I learned that when playing second fiddle to, and massaging the ego of a psychopath, I’m viewed as not a threat, and they become more open to suggestions and help from me. Hell, they may even think the idea was their own. Because I appear to be not threatening to their position in the company.

I was now managing them from a distance,

And as an empath I definitely say the world is ripe for picking, because I have a unique understanding of the way other people are processing their emotions,

And having the compassion to help people onwards in life is where my kicks come from.

So can it hurt you?

Yes, it can if you don’t know how to manage it effectively.

But if you do, the world is your oyster,

And it’s why I write for all of you,

I hope in time you guys find your awesome,

And take it to us,

And explode your awesomeness all over,

Be safe, friends :)