Too Much Empathy is Bad for You!

If you keep giving more than you are getting, you are going to run out.

What do we tell our parents when they compare us to other people? We are not them. I find it appropriate that we tell ourselves the same thing when we go overboard with doing onto others as we wish them to do unto us. This is especially true for empathetic people who will do all they can for anyone who needs help but will rather suffer than ask for help when they need it. Christianity may make you think you could never spend too much time helping others but trust me, prioritizing other people over yourself eventually burns you out.

I think I spent more time helping other people with their work than anyone I knew in college. Somehow I had acquired enough empathy to treat literally anybody as more important than myself. When you start helping whoever needs it, you feel like you’re doing good and you’re happy to see things improve a little bit for these people by your hand. As you build your life this way, you’ll get to a point where you have built a network of people who expect you will be available to help out whenever they need it. Your ruinous empathy will ensure that you would rather do all you can to live up to their expectations than tell them you are having trouble focusing on your own stuff because you are spending so much time helping them.

I realized I had to do something about my empathy when I got to a point where I was basically hiding from people who wanted my help with stuff. I was slowly descending into depression at the time and attempting to escape the effects of my ruinous empathy contributed a great deal to the isolation I was about to suffer. If you keep giving more than you are getting, you’re going to run out.

The most important thing is balance. If you are someone who asks for help with everything, then it’s great to help anyone you can. If you are someone who almost never asks for help, don’t volunteer your help easily. It will burn you out. Here are a few things every ruinously empathetic person should keep in mind:

1. Learn to say “I don’t know” whenever you can.

If you practice ruinous empathy it’s likely that there have been times when people have asked you to help them with things you have no idea how to do. Rather tell them you can’t help them and recommend they go to someone with more expertise in that area, you take on the task of learning what you need in other to help them. We usually make the excuse “you’ll never know where you could use the new knowledge”. Well you can also use more knowledge in areas on which you are already focused. These people were living their lives before they met you and will continue to do so when you are gone. For someone who spent years dealing with the results of never saying “I don’t know”, it feels really good whenever I say it now.

2. Learn to discriminate between people

We all have an inner circle of people we will do anything for. This circle is usually never larger than 15 people. Jesus Christ had an inner circle of 12 disciples and he was basically running a company that served multitudes. If you have never taken the time clarify which people form a part of your inner circle, you should do so. You cannot solve everyone’s problems; sometimes you need to be courageous enough to watch people go through trouble and not get involved. Your inner circle tends to be comprised of people you intend to go through life with. Prioritize them over the other people who will come and go at different points in your life.

3. Measure and track how much time it takes you to meet your commitments

It is important to know how much time you can afford to spend helping other people. There is a minimum amount of time you need to spend focusing on your job or school work in order to keep going in a progressive direction. You need to figure this out in order to know just how much time you can afford to spend helping people. Empathetic people are very likely to volunteer their time without evaluating how much it will cost them. Knowing how much time you can actually afford to spend helping other people is invaluable in such situations.

4. Remember you’re human

You are not perfect and will fall prey to your empathy again in the future. It is important in these times to remember that this is okay. Take it from someone who did all he could to give certain authority figures no room for criticism, you will never be able to please everybody. You will have to learn to be okay with disappointing some people after making commitments to them. There’s nothing wrong with saying “ I really wanted to help and said yes without thinking of the fact that I had other commitments”. Timing is key here though: the earlier you back out the better.

Have a nice day !!!