Too many people benefit from self-grown sympathy, with issues they create from themselves. This could be an endless article, but I’ll keep it brief knowing that attention spans aren’t what they used to be. Empathy is nowhere in the same ballpark as sympathy; yet I believe many interchange the meaning and distribution.

Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy should come with the word humanity. That group whom is treated like less than garbage simply because of what they look like or where they’re from. A person who was assaulted and taken advantage of. The family was hit by a drunk driver. A natural disaster that destroyed part of a town. That person who lost their life, time or opportunity due to what they look like. That person who was denied a home loan or business loan because of a permanent tan. You see where I’m going with this. It’s not because of their actions but by the design of society their lives have many hurdles to overcome if at all possible.

Sympathy: feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. Sympathy has its place but seems to be overly used for self-inflicted decisions. A person who goes to jail because they were an accessory to a robbery. The person that no one wants long-term commitment with because they have countless sexual partners and what seems minimal self-respect. Someone who has 3-4 kids while living in a one-bedroom apartment. (Somehow, they didn’t think that’s not a healthy environment to raise multiple children?) But let’s be selfish by creating kids while cramping yourself in said apartment? The person who can’t earn more money because they have minimal bankable skills; all while refusing to pick up a free library book to assist in adding tangible skills.

How about stop lying to people about situations they themselves have created. Why do terrorist training parents get public sympathy for their kids shooting up schools? You have a sexual encounter with a married person; yet, somehow, the married one is the only person who’s done wrong? They’re kids that are menaces to society, but who gives the credit to the lacksadasical parents that never held them accountable? Someone who’s smoked cigarettes since a teenager, then people are shocked and sad if/when cancer develops; yet who in the world doesn’t know cigarettes kill. A person dies jumping out of an airplane, and people cry, saying, “they died too soon.” No, they took the risk to die and paid the price; but hey, at least they had a view.

One that really gets on my last nerve are those wanting public sympathy for their choices in selecting a bad co-parent with their child/children. (I’m not talking about those that got scammed.) You get zero sympathy from me if you’re the second or fifth child-carrier to a guy that hasn’t taken care of the previous three kids, from three other women. What made you think you would be the “special” one to make him finally accountable. You chose to bring a child into this world with added struggles. (So don’t blame all men for your bad choices.) Hold on there’s no passes for the male, who chose to have unprotected sex with a woman that also has two or five different kid fathers. Didn’t her previous choices not warn you enough that something is there that makes the previous donors not stick around?

Why would anyone choose to become a better person or decision maker if so many of us choose to create excuses for those who routinely perform in bad decisions. People excessively allow the overuse of the term it was a mistake… A decision is only a mistake if the person clearly does not know the possibility of the outcome. I have empathy for the innocent; not for the unaccountable.

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