You can’t choose who another person is, but you can choose who you want to associate with. You can choose who you want to befriend, who you want to date, who you want to work with. You can’t control others, but you can control your choices and responses to them. It’s far easier to choose kind people than to choose an unkind person and try to change them into a kind person.
You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with them. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all.
I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.
After physical survival, our greatest human need is psychological survival or the need to be understood, affirmed, validated, and appreciated. When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air.
Empathy is not sympathy. A sympathy is a form of agreement. Empathy is not agreeing with someone; it is fully, deeply understanding that person, emotionally as well as intellectually. Read more
After 21 years, we made the difficult decision to bring our catalogue to a close. To stay connected with Dr. Kim's writings, please feel free to subscribe for free here: Dr. Ben Kim on Substack. Sending best wishes and thanks to all.