Empathy Never Wins

Alice had not known her co worker had a child, or even that she had been married before. The woman's daughter wore a steel leg brace and Alice overheard her say to her mother: 'Is this where my new daddy works too? My heart suddenly went out to that little girl' In that moment, alice experienced what psychologists call empathy. This is not the same thing as sympathy, in which we understand the feelings of others. It is more it means imaginatively projecting yourself into the mental attitudes and states of the other person. Any time you feel tempted to injure or think ill of another, project yourself mentally into the mind of moses and think from the standpoint of the ten commandments