-Evaluation

-Probe

-Advise

-Interpret

Instead, Covey recommends these four solutions that help build emphatic responses:

-Mimic the content

-Rephrasing the content

-Reflect the feeling

-Rephrase the content and reflect the feeling.

As simple as it sounds, it wasn’t until I read it that I realized how much of a difference acting out the four steps above could be in virtually all levels of interaction.

You’re right but since I know Ryan is not fond of religion I left those parts out.

I will note that Paul was well versed in Hebrew scriptures and Greek philosophy. As evidenced by his oratory in Athens where he uses klogic to talk to them. “I become all things to all men for Christ”

Scott

Thanks for answering my question. Ryan’s article let me see the logic in empathy, but I couldn’t fully comprehend it.

“You could have resisted the urge to self-preservation and still retained your dignity (or ‘looked out for yourself’) because you would have transcended the petty battlefield of the ego, and challenged the guy to do the same.”

Reprimanding the loud kid in the library was a petty thing to do on my part. If I had instead looked at the situation with empathy and not have engaged in a fight of egos he might have quieted down more freely, his pride unhurt. I would even have been better off for resisting the temptation to feed my ego by attacking someone who was only inadvertently offending me.

The challenge of empathy is to recognize it as a choice in the right situations, even if you act a different way. And each time you choose empathy you’re making your path towards a free conscious less cluttered.

That’s at least what I’ve taken away from this discussion and I hope it makes sense to others.

… evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

I’ve found that a lot of what Paul writes about is reminiscent of Greek philosophy and more specifically Aristotelian ethics, just utilizing a different explanatory framework. The downside of all that is that it also lends itself to some really perverted interpretations.

15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing… 21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

Ain’t nobody perfect – just gotta keep working at it!

Scott

Sounds like a mix of Mills utilitarianism and Kant’s categorical imperative (humanity formula interpretation), free in pursuit of higher pleasures as long as the lengths to which one goes to achieve that excellence does not cause the treatment other people as mere means, but rather as ends in and of themselves.

Either way, biases are very difficult to strip, so while I think it is a good idea to go out into the world with the objective of being more empathic towards others, it is more realistic to be sympathetic towards others; while you understand someone’s position, you do not understand how they handle it, you merely understand or believe you understand how you would handle it, and are sympathetic.

Very, very interesting comment by Matt. I have never read Frankl, but I want to now.