EMPATHY

EMPATHY Emotion is one of the four ingredients of empathy, i.e, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. The others are cognition, the process of acquiring the knowledge and understanding of how others are feeling at any point in time and space; compassion, the ability to act positively to reduce the pains and suffering of others; and communication, the art of active listening and communicating. The four make up the elements that can produce what social scientists would call an emotionally intelligent human being. They are skills for learning, developing and actively practicing, on a daily basis, human virtues such as courage, temperance, compassion, respect, honesty, prudence, etc. They are therefore considered as learnable way of life that let's individual lives a good life. A good life is one that adheres strictly to ethical and moral laws. Ethics are the principles that govern human behaviour and how we conduct our affairs with one another. Morals are concerned with the principles of the rightness and the wrongness of our behaviour as well as the goodness and badness of our character. Law governs society as a whole, dealing with how we interact and connect with one another. It is about treating others as you would want others to treat you. It is in first understanding others that others can understand you. It is in forgiving others their trespasses that your own trespasses can be forgiven. It is in meeting the needs of others that your own needs can be met. It is in not judging others that you are not judged. It is by lifting people up that you are lifted up. The list is endless. It is the law of reciprocity if you wish to call it that way. This is a universal law and another great mystery too. But they are teachable and therefore learnable.