In all its diversity (since empathy is about emotions – inherently complex), empathy can easily "disguise" itself as a definition or an understanding that isn’t quite accurate. In true “our people must know our history” style, “if you don’t know, Google it.” Let’s try translating "Empathy" and "Sympathy" into Vietnamese. Although these two words have clearly different meanings, they wear an identical Vietnamese cloak. If even translations get it wrong, what other misunderstandings about empathy might there be? We need to act quickly, together with you, to decode these misconceptions about empathy!

Oh, but first, we must report this wildly inaccurate result!

Misconception #1: Empathy is Sympathy

First of all, are these two concepts really the same? What do you think empathy and sympathy are about? How can we distinguish between them?

Empathy starts with absorbing the other person’s perspective without any judgment. Then, we recognize the emotions they are experiencing and connect with them through these emotions. Often, when we hear a sad story, the urge to comfort, to make someone feel better, rises immediately to our lips.

She gave up right away, knowing she couldn't compete with the geniuses she had faced before.

She didn't get back up again, realizing that its life was full of stumbles. Every storm eventually passes, but why does her life seem to be filled with endless mistakes? So, she decided not to rise anymore—just to lie still and stay down.

She threw itself into an 8-hour workday, took on more side projects, and kept running on the road to chase money and happiness, only to collapse in her twenties.

Those words, which seemed comforting, were really just a sugar coating over a bitter pill. But you have to swallow the pill no matter what, so why cover it up? Eventually, you get used to the sweetness, making the bitterness harder to accept.

Empathy is like this... You dive into a deep, dark hole with someone else. You strip away your outer layers, exposing your own ugliness, and then connect with the ugliness of the other person. That's all.

So, what about sympathy? It's when you think you can align with someone else's emotions.

But that's where it stops. Because you think you're in sync, you assume you understand and can find solutions to someone else’s problems. That connection, however, may not be strong and could even feel a bit insensitive, or hard to grasp for the other person.

With empathy, you want to help them through concrete, clear actions, rather than just stopping at emotional connection. That’s when compassion comes into play.

So, before saying "Stay strong," try saying "I understand you..." and just give them a hug.

Misconception #2: Empathy only happens if you've experienced the same situation?

People tend to empathize with those who share similar life circumstances, appearances, behaviors... like themselves. This tendency often leads to empathy biases, or what many studies refer to as the "us" and "them" phenomenon (Cikara et al., 2014). The empathy gap widens when you're trying to connect with someone from a different religion, culture, or race than yours.

Many studies have shown that people often find it harder to empathize with those who are not part of their "group":

A group of Chinese people tends to empathize more with the pain of fellow Chinese than with white people (Xu and Han, 2009);

On opposing sides of a battlefield, people may feel more guilt for harming innocent civilians than for shooting soldiers from the other side, who are just another human being (Molenberghs et al., 2015);

Healthcare providers feel more empathy and are more proactive in prescribing effective treatment to patients who share their skin color (Drwecki et al., 2011).

Returning to the original definition, empathy means understanding someone else's emotions deeply and clearly. This understanding doesn't necessarily come from personal experience (as that often leads to existing biases) but can come from your imagination.

But is that really possible, and if it’s just imagination, how can we truly achieve empathy?

YES, IT'S POSSIBLE.

You can relate someone else’s emotions to a different experience you’ve had that evoked similar feelings in you.

Once, we had a black dog named Muc. For a group of carefree kids who just lived to run and play, Muc was an awesome companion for tag games and rolling down the ditches.

One stormy day, Muc couldn’t run anymore. He lay in a corner of the house, curled up. We were worried. Muc was panting, as if trying to take in the thick air. We were scared, almost to the point of tears. Even though we had never lost anyone before in our short lives, we knew that this was going to be really sad. It was probably going to hurt as much as when our cousin burned our robot toy, or when our parents left for the city for a week and left us with our grandparents. We figured it would feel that painful, or maybe even worse.

After about a week, we overheard our parents talking about Muc’s illness. We felt so sorry for our dear companion, as he had been holding on for so long. So, we nodded and told our parents to send Muc to dog heaven, where he could play tag with his friends again. That night, we hugged each other and cried our hearts out, but at least... Muc was happy now.

For us little kids with runny noses, we rarely experienced any real loss. So, we had to relate it to some comparable sense of loss we had gone through to empathize with Muc.

Although born in peacetime, can you empathize with refugees of war? You can relate it to a time when something deeply unfair happened to you—something beyond your control that completely upended your life. Even if you were born into a well-off family, can you empathize with those who struggle financially? You can think back to a time when you had very few options or resources at your disposal. And though you were born a man, can you empathize with women facing injustice in the workplace? You can connect it to an experience where you had very little power, few people willing to listen, and every effort was dismissed.