Quote:
Originally Posted by Wormius
Or you have a sense of perspective and you realize that your baby crying unrelentingly while you really want to sleep, or squirming around when you're trying to change a diaper isn't going to kill you. Hence why you don't sympathize with somebody who would think of harming their child to make them stop.
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One feels sympathy when one hasn't been there. One feels empathy when one has. The ability to put oneself into someone else's shoes is what separates man from beast. We are talking about empathy or the ability to understand, perceive another person's feelings. The two are not the same and feelings are not actions.
When it's 3 in the morning, you have too work in 4 hours and haven't had more than 6 hours of sleep all week, have practically nothing to eat in the house, your dog hasn't been walked in days, wondering if the bills are going to be paid on one income and your wife is sad all the time due to drastic hormonal changes, your perspective can get a little skewed. Feeling empathy in this situation is the natural human response. What your actions are is the measure of what kind of human you are and understanding why someone would do something is very different then doing it.
Unless you know more than the mental help professionals available to new parents and my friend who is a PhD Psychology to whom I have spoken about this, I will stand by my post as relevant, honest discussion.