Empathy and Perspective 

'We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.'

 Abraham Lincoln

Empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and imagining how they feel.  To have empathy we have to listen to people and change our behaviour to show them kindness.

We can also refer to empathy as: showing understanding of others; seeing things from another’s point of view.  The opposite of empathy is hard-heartedness or being so taken up with yourself that you can’t see anything from another’s point of view.

Having perspective is weighing things and seeing what is and isn’t important.  Perspective helps us to take important things seriously and not to make a fuss about things that don’t really matter.