connect the dots to climb the ladder
- katiekrance05
- Oct 10, 2025
- 4 min read
Connecting empathy to success in life. Dots and ladder :)
If you walk into the breakroom at your job, and your friend is sobbing at a table surrounded by coworkers, do you:
A) Loudly announce the promotion you just received?
B) Join the group and quietly figure out how to help?
C) Play 'Mystical Magical' by Benson Boon on a loudspeaker and start an impromptu karaoke session?
It's fairly obvious what to do in this situation. Moonbeam Ice Cream it up. No, just kidding, sorry. Figure out what's going on, don't make the situation about yourself and find a way to help. Social norms are deeply ingrained into children from a young age. How well they internalize these norms is up to them.
The concept of empathy is defined "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another" (Mirriam Webster). Being empathetic allows you to connect to people on deeper levels and form stronger relationships. Empathy is not an exclusively innate skill; it can be built upon and improved.
How can you do this, you ask? Hmm, in concurrence to every other post in this blog, the answer is... reading! Just read a book! Immersing yourself into fictional stories and in the minds of other people is a simple and fun practice of empathy. You are doing the exact definition given by Mirriam Webster, putting yourself in someone's mind/shoes and experiencing emotion as they would. Reading fiction allows you to practice taking on someone else’s perspective and thus improves your social awareness. It can even improve your emotional intelligence.
People who have high levels of empathy are very good at reading rooms and understanding people. Now, it is not a guarantee to be an emotional whiz is every social situation, but it is a way to improve social interaction to better understand social situations. Practicing with fictional characters and emotionally experiencing situations is a great way to build your own empathy. Characters often comment on empathetic people and point out certain characteristics that they appreciate or notice.
There are 3 types of empathy (as noted by psychologists)
Cognitive empathy- to be able to identify and understand someone's emotions without physically experiencing them.
Emotional empathy- ability to physically and emotionally feel someone's emotions as if they were your own.
Compassionate empathy- also called empathetic concern, taking action to alleviate someone's suffering based on understanding their emotions
(Sebolt)
All of these kinds of compassion are easily found in books!
If you are reading a character's inner monologue, you are experiencing all of the written emotions as you create emotional attachments to the characters. You put yourself into their head and empathize with them as you read their thoughts. This is cognitive empathy. When you think about a book after you've read it, you recall the emotions the character you loved felt at certain times. This is emotional empathy, and you're practicing it right now if you're thinking of your favorite character that an author killed off. I can recall the guilt, the sadness, and the horror that my character felt as they realized their best friend didn't survive a mission. And compassionate empathy are the actions you take to help someone out when you can tell they need it. If someone is crying, you comfort them and help them. If someone is frustrated, you listen to them and help them come up with a solution. If someone is stressed, you help them make a plan to compartmentalize their worry. These are all things we do without realizing. All characters in every book, unless they are truly evil and heartless, have practiced compassionate empathy.
Literally just now, my mom brought me a glass of water when I coughed--> compassionate empathy!
Practicing these types of empathy promotes kindness. If everyone was empathetic to others the world would be a much nicer place. John Keats, a very good poet (don't try to argue), once said, "Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced." So how can someone else’s perspective and emotions ever become real enough for us to develop empathy? Research suggests that fictional books may effectively be empathy-building tools, offering us the closest we can get to first-hand knowledge of someone else’s experience (Kidera).
Reading fiction activates your brain. Brain work is good, no one wants a smooth, mushy brain. When you read fiction, it activates your temporal lobe (the language center) and increases blood flow to the brain. It also activates the motor cortex (that controls physical movement) and parts of the brain linked to the olfactory senses. So basically, reading fiction neurologically simulates the brain to experience what you are reading (Kidera).
Reading fiction is the closest you can get to physically experiencing someone else's knowledge. It's pretty neat that, "you can, to some degree, experience the experiences of others, getting you neurologically one step closer to an understanding necessary for empathy (Kidera)."
Empathy is a trait that everyone looks for and appreciates. It is a skill in life that can only lead you to success. Relationships, clear communication, conflict-resolution and kindness are all benefits of practicing empathy.
Why wouldn't you want to practice empathy?
Sources (lovingly not cited in MLA format)
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