Beautifully written. :)

But I believe that empathy should be exercised with a pinch of salt. I truly believe that one has to be empathetic before acting to not hurt the feelings of the other individual. But empathy brings a lot of baggage with it.

When you are empathetic, it means you have very high regard for the other person. You develop a false deep belief that you understand the attitude and the emotions of the other individual completely. And you decide to choose that action among all your available options at that point of time which positively/neutrally benefits the other person.

Its all sunny when everything goes well as you expected. When you put yourself in the shoes of the other person and other person reacts the way you expect them too.

But empathy has the power to shape your own true personality for the benefit of the other person; empathy can be upsetting when you do not receive the reactions/rewards that you have expected your action to return; empathy can fill you with disgust and guilt when the person whom you thought you understood so well isn’t empathetic towards you or betrays you. Empathy adds a lot of stress on you when making decisions. It doesn’t let you act freely because you always fear about hurting the other person’s feelings in any unforeseen way. Empathy changes from who you are to who you think you need to be to be liked by the other person. Empathy forces you to become compatible, adaptable and will constrain your expressions. And, empathy can make you pretentious.

In short, empathy is definitely essential to keep kindled relationships alive. But a person should only be empathetic as long as he feels it is not hindering his true will/expressions to a big extent. It’s very subjective and one shouldn’t be blamed for not being empathetic. It’s just another trait of one’s personality which might include countless other good qualities.

If we had a shot for everytime I said empathy, it would be a kick-ass party yo!