100 Days of Love, Day 5 Entry 2
I believe that I honestly and wholeheartedly care about people. I believe that I have empathic tendencies, which I unconsciously turn on and off. I find the greatest joy in opening my empathy to people. It requires putting their feelings and emotions first, ahead of my own, so that I am able to feel what they're feeling. It seems impossible to feel what someone else is feeling, but I find this not to be the case. I'm not sure exactly how many feelings/emotions "there are", but I do believe that at some point in our lives, we experience all of them. How would I feel given his/her situation?
I find there are times I try to avoid people, which seems counterintuitive to me given that I believe I care about them. I believe this to be a fear of "having too many real relationships" or something along those lines. I ought to embrace them at every moment.
It seems there is a pattern in my family of doing things for others. It also seems to be somewhat conditional. I think this stems from an intellectual understanding of what caring for people means rather than an emotional understanding of what care really is. Care is listening. Care is gaining trust so that you can help eradicate someone's fear, or reshape it into an opportunity. After all "Life is full of opportunity."