As young artivists, we must recognize empathy as a medium that connects us to the world in order to enact positive social change.
1. Recognize empathy's essential role in good leadership.
In 2007, Senator Obama said, "We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize — the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenaged mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old".
At a presidential campaign appearance in 2007 he said: "We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize, the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old".
Every time, though, the onus seems to fall on us to explain to you how to make our lives matter in a way that humanizes us, not just you – in a way that recognizes our empathy and compassion as we bleed and die, instead of fortifying your indulgent anxiety.
Last night, I was called in as a fellow person and human, and I was thankful for their instruction in recognizing that empathy with another community's pain is not a sign of my own community's weakness.
Related to self-examination is recognizing that empathy and compassion are qualities of a developed, mature mind, resilient to stress, able to manage internal conflicts and maintain well-being.
Although the importance of empathy has been recognized and emphasized, the concept of empathy has a long history marked by ambiguity in its definition and measurement.
For example, Joy slowly recognized the power of empathy and Sadness' role in that regard.
Empathy is recognized as a multilayered phenomenon (de Waal 2008; Preston and de Waal 2002) which can be defined as "the capacity to be affected by and share the emotional state of another, assess the reasons for the other's state and identify with the other, adopting his or her perspective" (de Waal 2008).
"I find it can reflect more profound difficulties in forming collaborative relationships based on trust," he told me, "and, at the same time, recognizing that all empathy has imperfections".
