I've been noticing lately that empathy seems to be a matter of perspective as well. What I view as compassion is sometimes viewed differently by others, which I think is actually useful in its' own way. Perhaps empathy isn't universal for a reason and it is this way to keep us mindful of our own intentions. The old saying "The path to hell was paved on good intentions," seems to come to mind. With that being said, today I'll discuss my thoughts on the difference between empathy and enabling.
I find this issue seems to come up the most in regards to my views on victim mentality. It's a hard line to toe honestly, because I have empathy for others when they have bad things happen to them, but I also have pretty much zero empathy for going around blaming and seeking validation that what happened was unfair. The simple truth that I've found is that life isn't fair and it's never going to be about right or wrong, because all of those things are subjective and just a matter of perspective.
In my mind, it's then unfair of me to validate someone else's victim mentality as that is enabling them to keep blaming others and perpetuating the cycle. The problem as I see it with victim mentality is that it inherently makes us violent. We seek vengeance and justice, which usually boils down to, "You hurt me now I'm going to hurt you worse," and it never seems to work out in such a simple "eye for an eye" fashion. Often times the justice we seek and the judgments we cast lack perspective and in the end we are spreading violence because a perceived violence happened to us. Well my thoughts on that are that "an eye for an eye" makes the world blind and I don't feel that's it's responsible to justify victim mentality as that is focusing on the problem instead of the solution. It's the difference between working together towards a mutual resolution and working together towards a mutual destruction. Namaste.