UBC Wed For Life

Sympathy and empathy are two words everyone has heard before. They have become hot topics following the events that have transpired over the past few weeks. In the past, the action of extending sympathy towards someone who had suffered a loss of some kind was expected. It was a normal, almost trivial part of living in human society. Nowadays, it seems like people will argue over something as simple as when it's appropriate to empathize with others. That transition is just more evidence that the world has fallen. What exactly are sympathy and empathy though? We’ve all used the words at some point, but do we really understand what they mean? At times, people use them almost interchangeably, but there is an important difference between the two concepts. Webster’s dictionary describes that difference as such: “ Sympathy is a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful. Empathy involves actively sharing in the person’s emotional ...