3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Try to Save Someone Else

The hardest person to save is often yourself.

Amey Deo

4 min read

1 hour ago

Listen

I’ve always been the person who tries to fix things.

A friend is struggling?

I’m there.

Someone’s hurting?

I want to help.

Someone’s making the same mistake for the tenth time?

I’ll sit with them, listen, and try to show them a better way.

For the longest time, I thought this was who I was supposed to be. The good friend. The supportive one. The person who shows up.

But somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t just showing up for others.

I was abandoning myself.

I’ve always been confused about the difference between empathy and sympathy. It wasn’t until I quit my comfortable IT job and joined film school that I really understood it.

Sympathy is when a friend gets into an accident, breaks his leg, and now he’s sitting in the hospital. I feel bad for him. I get that it must be painful. But I can’t truly know what he’s going through.

Empathy is when that same friend goes through a bad breakup. I can sit with him and feel his pain because I’ve been there…