The candidate for a leading position had a charming personality. The tone of his voice was passionate. The selection of his words was heart-touching. His empathy gained him influence. Influence leads to power. The candidate won by a sweeping percentage. He was in a position of power.
Feeling so strong, the candidate abandoned his old friends. He forgot about his promises. He only thought of himself. He used power extensively. His empathy and influence bifurcated him into a forceful person.
The same story repeats all the time. I am sure you recall many candidates who reached leading positions behaved similarly.
We humans tend to drop what made us influential and replace it with what makes us feel stronger.
We replace the power of empathy with the power of apathy.
I believe this trend leads to the known phenomenon of “empathy avoidance effect”. This effect serves as a cover for people who replaced empathy with sheer power. The effect provides excuses for not helping needy people because it may be expensive to do so and not to feel motivated to help others.
We humans forget what we should not. We tend to forget what made us successful and replace it with what makes us feel stronger.
The trend extends to ourselves. We forget who helped us. When our power grows, we drop those people who helped us. I wonder if this has to do with our avoidance of our asking for help and not wanting people who helped us to remind us of our weakness. We bite the hands that helped us.
Empathy is great but if it develops into selfish power then we reap what we did not initially plant.
