It’s easy to think of empathy as something you’ve got or don’t got, but researchers contend that a new spate of research proves the opposite: You can choose to be more empathetic, and people who lack empathy are often people whose lives are set up so that they don’t “need” it. 

The idea of cultivating empathy, of course, is not so crazy. If you have the slightest bit of self-awareness about your own thoughts, you can surely detect when you’re viewing your fellow humans as more or less deserving of your general regard, broad-mindedness and basic respect. This generosity of spirit toward others can even vary from day to day or by circumstance, but it could also be the framework through which you try to view all of humanity—try being the operative word, in that you can work towards empathy, again and again…

I’ve personally experienced a radical empathy shift in my lifetime. As I’ve written about many times, having a baby made me wildly more empathetic than I’d ever been.

by Tracy Moore