Kindness is certainly a quality to be admired and the world would be a better place if we were kinder to one another. However, there are many situations when being kind is the most unproductive, disrespectful and frankly, the unkindest thing you can do to another human being.
Source: Fast Company, May 23, 2018. Link.
Here’s what empathy is: It’s putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, or at least sliding your feet into them and trying them on for size. It’s about understanding and perspective taking. Sometimes, it can lead to a behavior shift that might make you more benevolent, but that’s more a byproduct than a fundamental condition of empathizing.
INSIGHTS: A prerequisite of real empathy is the ability to suspend your own perspective for the moment to fully appreciate another viewpoint. The inability to completely suspend your version of reality will distort your perspective of another’s version of reality.