The Bright Side

Terry O’Neill, former Lake Geneva Alderman, writes from his heart:

Empathy for others is an essential characteristic of humanity surviving. Without empathy, humanity reverts to inhumanity and the inhumane treatment of others. Empathy is the ability to see, respect and care for the life in others, such that one feels another’s experience as their own. This enables a person to be more understanding, forgiving and caring toward others. Most people and societies apply empathy in various amounts to selected individuals, groups and animals, while leaving others outside of their protective umbrella of empathy. The level to which empathy is applied, and felt or withheld, determines what is considered acceptable or unacceptable treatment of others. For people to limit or excluded their feelings of empathy from others requires physical, mental and emotional separation, and the greater the isolation the more it enables the dehumanization of the relationship and their actions to become. Empathy or the lack of it may be in one’s DNA, or perhaps it may be taught or learned from experience.

em·pa·thy ˈ empəTHē/ noun: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

But regardless of the source, difficult times and disasters bring out empathy and unites even strangers; whereas, turmoil, stress and unrest can block empathy and divide households, friends and even loved ones. Empathy although in and of itself is good, empathy is rooted in emotional situations that are depressing and can cause pain, frustration and sometimes guilt, or even anger when little or nothing is being done, or can be done to correct or alleviate the situation.

Empathy, like a problem has two parts:
1.) The problem itself
2.) The tension (emotions) that the problem creates.

The tension (empathy) is the emotional and motivating part of a problem, and needs to be addressed first because people can live with problems, but not with the emotional dissonance that they can cause. Those lacking empathy often prey on the empathy of others for personal benefit or organizational revenue. It is not always easy to separate legitimate requests from those that are not. Just as it is not always easy to tell the difference between empathy and love. Because empathy is like love in the feelings that one has for those who have suffered, but love unlike empathy, does not turn to anger, and against those who may have caused, permitted or enable the suffering to occur; whereas, empathy by itself often does. Empathy like loyalty is selective; whereas, love is universal and applies to all.

Cartoon of the Week

Cartoon Terry O'Neill Lake Geneva

Grandest Person on the Bright Side

Jeremy Bria Chiropractor Lake geneva

Jeremy Bria, the wonderful chiropractor at Fontana Family Chiropractic is enthusiastic about his work, his practice members, and the community. He loves sharing his knowledge and ideas about the benefits of chiropractic work. He says his goal is to help people live at their optimum health. Dr. Bria hosts a dinner (on him) at The Abbey quarterly to educate the community on healthy options for their well being. Give the office a call to learn more about an assessment or the dinner (262)275-5005.

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