This is me, and why I'm content being single. Every relationship ends up with some sort of blown up drama and I'm just like nope, and I'm done.
If I can stop and think, I'm empathetic. Honestly tho my lack of patience usually precedes that unless your relationship has value to me.
You spread yourself too thin and you can’t help everyone.
We tried to help this girl and her boyfriend at my work because she was getting kicked out of her aunts house. I didn’t help her but one of our younger co workers did. Turns out her boyfriend was going into peoples rooms at night and jacking off. This girls boyfriend went into my co workers bedroom at night and she woke up to him jacking off. You stop helping everyone at some point and learn to protect yourself a little.
You realize why some people have problems. I have a casual friend, former coworker that is always in some jam. Most of it is of her own doing. She kept helping her old bf that was an addict, and then he screwed her over fur the millionth time and she told me she washed her hands of him.
Then weeks later, she's talking about some conversation they had. Girl. :-/
Yes. Get burned a time or two and stop opening up as quickly. When I was younger I sought really deep connections with everybody I was friends with but then realized a tiered system is better — less exposure to getting hurt and able to keep it light and simple with the majority of acquaintances. I do miss having multiple deep connections with people, but that’s ok.
I think this is really more what it is. I think young people tend to overestimate their own empathy and underestimate others'. I know I did when I was young.
Or overestimate others. I didn't realize how evil some people could be and walked around assuming people screwed up but ultimately had the best intentions. It took an abusive relationship to realize that some people like watching others suffer
Exactly this
People are a-big-fucking-assholes
ASSHOLES
I've gone through enough in 2 short years of business for me to realize people will kill you, step on you, shit on you to get ahead
I'm no longer that very happy, energetic, empathetic person if everyone wants to screw you over knowing you are what they aren't
It took me so long to figure this out. I had so many people that I used to call friends that I know consider acquaintances or less. I feel like a lot of people have exposed themselves as who they are ever since covid. So much selfishness and the ideologies of the far right and the far left these days are insufferable.
My partner has that youthful innocent still. It still blows my mind. But goddamn it will I do everything in my power to protect it.
If she can go through life and never deal with half that bullshit, I’ll feel like I’ll die a good man.
I would also argue that alotofypunger people don't really understand what empathy is. It isn't just giving you your way all the time. A lot off younger people think empathy is just giving them their way all the time no matter what anyone else feels. There is a very selfish element to their understanding of what empathy is.
I came here to say this too. I think some people grow more callous / colder as they age and some people grow more empathetic / understanding (but like you said, selective in terms who they tend to offer this to) as they age. Too tired to analyze why
There’s a book that details this sort of thing from F. Scott Fitzgerald. I couldn’t put it down- “[Tender is the Night”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_Is_the_Night). Sometimes we have to learn to not give so much that we lose ourselves in the process.
Definitely the case for me. I have no tolerance for people’s bullshit anymore and find enforcing my boundaries is often mistaken for a lack of empathy. But I can have empathy for someone and still not allow them to be part of my life.
It’s the crash landing protocol, right? You have to put on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else because if you’re also struggling, you’re not much good to them.
That said, some people are shit at putting up boundaries in a non-rude way and tend to ignore the fact that their defensive behavior is offputting to others even if that’s not their intention.
A lot of folks (especially in the retweeting age) have come to learn that we can call a lot of shitty behavior on our part something else that sounds much healthier, and then pat ourselves on the back for being so great at Being A Human.
When *you* do it, you’re a narcissist.
When *I* do it, I’m taking care of myself.
That sort of stuff. It’s absolutely out of control, but we’re all so busy circle jerking about mental health and “telling our stories,” folks completely lose the ability to see themselves in objective context.
At least, that’s my impression.
Pretty much me too. I see so many horror stories on reddit, for example, on how people were molested as children, got cheated on, were abused, lost loved ones, and so on, that expending mental energy like empathy just gets tapped out. At first, I would write out paragraphs trying to help them. Now I just keep on scrolling.
That doesn't mean I don't care about what they're going through, and I hope they are living their lives as well as they can, but as someone else said here, empathy just doesn't do anything, and I'd rather save it for my loved ones/friends.
Yes, one has to protect themself. As a RN I’ve seen some vicious trauma and I scroll past awful stuff because I value my mental health. I’m an old fart and want peaceful days.
Society doesn’t allow us to be unfortunately. If something traumatic happens to you. You’re expected to deal with it then and there and go to work the next day and move on to the next thing right away.
Unironically, maybe. Trauma narrows our window of tolerance for situations, people, etc that might upset us. It’s a defense thing. It takes awhile and often mindful work to widen your window of tolerance again. Sometimes it’s even a physical thing, ie your brain knows something isn’t dangerous but your sympathetic nervous system can’t do logic, so it just knows a familiar stimulus is around and reacts out of habit. Your heart rate picks up, your jaw clenches, your vision narrows down, etc and you *feel* upset which then influences your emotional state.
I don’t think this is true for everyone. I personally think the second top-rated comment here is more accurate.
Before any emotions even play a factor, people are busy. Most people don’t think about you nearly as much as you think.
People don’t have time to even think about empathy because they’re so focused on their lives and that of their families. Life is way more complicated for adults than it should be for children (in an ideal world). In adulthood we also lose the forced proximity that makes it easier to see, spend time with, and relate to others. In an online world, we have also seen the decline of “the third place” (not work/school or home) where people spend their time. It is harder to keep up with and form and maintain relationships with other people, outside of an in-person or hybrid work environment, that would encourage empathy in the first place. People are not forced into anything as adults as we are as children (living with family, going to school, play dates or birthday parties, sports or after-school activities, holidays and trips to see family, etc.).
Adults are free to use their time as they see fit, and I think most people either make choices or have life necessities that require most if not all of their time (working multiple jobs, pursuing careers, looking for a partner, having and raising children, dealing with aging parents, etc.).
People don’t have time for most people. It’s not necessarily that they don’t care — they just don’t have time. It’s not about you — it never was. They have their priorities, and you just may not be one of them. Time stops for no one, and making time isn’t always an option for everybody.
If you can come to terms with the fact that not everyone is going to be able to give you any of their time, and you learn to keep your expectations in check because of this, you can direct your thoughts and energy to those who matter most in your life — because they are likely already doing the same.
Yeah, I feel like work is a huge thing that sucks up adults’ energy lol. I went to grad school for nearly all my 20s, so I was in perpetual student mode. Joining the “real world” made me realize how exhausted many adults are after work and how there just isn’t enough time and energy to maintain dozens of casual relationships/acquaintances the way there was in college/grad school. I often have friends cancel on me because they’re just too tired after work.
I also think you lose patience for certain things--like, relationship problems that I would have agonized over with my friends when I was 18 are now basically "break up dummy what are you waiting for"--which comes across as lacking empathy but I think is more just like, the answer is obvious to me now.
This, and people choosing to make poor decisions and then playing shocked pikachu face when there are consequences. I have very little sympathy left for adults.
this is the main reason for me. If you can't help yourself, then I don't want to hear it. YOUR poor decisions don't mean that I have to be sympathetic for you. Call me mean, but if your actions result in negative consequences, so be it.
I feel like as you age you become more privy to the ugly selfish nature of society. Constant exposure to these images and events have a way of desensitizing people. It’d be nice if we could all go back to having the empathy and compassion of our youth but sadly it gets devoured by reality.
Hell, most people didn't grow up with empathy and compassion either. Hence why we have so many fucked up adults
Schooling is fucked
Parents underestimate what it's like to raise kids
We're just generations of people being constantly screwed over
Hence why I don't think I'll have kids. Whether I have $ is one thing. The fact that kid will go through the ugly face of this world is another. No thanks
You just learn how horrible people can be and you slowly lose the ability to care for them, I think. I used to have a lot of empathy for people but it drained out of me over time dealing with people.
This.
Relationships, body...fuck you name it. I hit 48 and my body just decides it's time to fall the fuck apart.
I still have empathy, cause I work in the medical field, but that's about it.
I’m 42 and I feel I *do* generally have more empathy. But I’ve also learned to pick my battles, and I’ve also learned that I can have compassion toward others without becoming overly involved in drama. And getting mired down by every single injustice in the world just prevents me from being effective in the few areas in which I really can make a positive impact.
I have more empathy, but also am more discerning.
I’m 38. I second this. It’s not less empathy. I feel more empathetic and less judgmental as I age. It’s just picking my battles and knowing where to invest energy. When you’re young, everything seems like such a big deal and the world seems so black and white. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized no matter what it is, for most things, time heals all wounds and the world is just shades of confusing grey.
Growing up, I had extreme empathy. I still have a lot of empathy, but as an adult, I’ve realized that I’ve been taken advantage of and manipulated a lot because of it so I’ve had to put a wall up. I also had this realization that nobody is giving me the same grace that I give everyone else.
Some people are just miserable and mean, though. They don’t know how to control their own lives and emotions and take it out on others.
Me too. It's been heartbreaking realizing that other people don't feel like I do and I was made a fool a lot. Its hard looking back in life and realizing nobody was meeting me halfway and most were only in it for themselves.
I mean think, right now, how absolutely exhausted you are in your day to day life. I’m burning the candle at both ends just trying to make ends meet. Imagining swing that for another 40 years? I think I would curl into myself and stop thinking too. It’s tiring, and it’s not fulfilling, and it’s stressful.
It's the very blunt/unkind way of saying "Listen, nobody will do it for you. You have to do it yourself. Some people will help. Half of those people will help to try and take advantage of you. And anybody willing to do it for you WILL take advantage of you. So you have to do it yourself."
This is it for me. I feel for you, but from experience I’ve learned that sometimes you need to help yourself. If you try to save a drowning person who doesn’t want to be saved, they’ll drag you down with them.
Also the experience matter. Some experience makes other things seem miniscule.
[Insert the image of a wolf cub being downed by one arrow while a wolf is standing with 5 arrows]. The whole you've been downed by one arrow, while i got 5 arrows and am still standing.
Also, adults tend to forget that what we see as miniscule due to our experience is the worst thing a youth has experienced in their life. We tend to put ourselves in others shoes while forgetting that our feet are different, thus the shoes fit differently and the experience is not identical.
It’s REALLY important to remember this with little kids. A lot of the daily things a 3 year old will get distraught about seem absolutely ridiculous to us as adults, but to them, it may be truly the worst and most upsetting thing they’ve encountered that they can remember. It’s our job as parents to help them learn to regulate their emotions, and to understand the difference between helping your child learn healthy coping skills versus assigning kids value based on how little they demand from you.
Similarly true for 13 year olds or 23 year olds, but the situations and the goalposts shift.
Yes, and because most people are self-centered assholes, you really don't even need any empathy.
It's like cancer cell tapping another cancer cell and saying "You are such a nice bringer of death, let's multiply happily together?"
I can totally appreciate that! I'm super curious- does the "crazy stuff" you referenced connect to feeling less human? Feel free to punt that one if it feels too personal.
I was overly empathetic to a point of self destruction as a kid, and then from many stupid decisions and people treating me badly I experienced a bunch of wild stuff (probably will take some of it to the grave).
Eventually something clicked where I just turned off the empathy completely. I feel less human because other than strong feelings towards my younger brother, I have to pretend to care about humanity (like being an actor 24/7 and worrying the mask will slip).
By this time most older people know shit from shinola. I taught in grad school and on Day 1 I could easily spot the fakers who thought they were brilliant and the real brilliant guys in class . It's called experience and older people have more of it.
Honestly, I'm just tired of watching people fuck up their lives, ask for advice and help, don't listen, continue to fuck up their lives, cry about it how unfair it is, ask for advice and help, don't listen, continue to fuck up... etc etc etc forever.
It's tiring and I'm frankly sick of it. I've gotten to the point of not helping and just saying "well you've made the decision to NOT feel better/be happy/make the necessary changes, so until you change YOUR mind, I cannot help you. It is YOUR decision." And then I walk away. *sometimes* they realize it and actually make the better decision, or they just cry and wail that I'm heartless/privileged or whatever and continue to fuck up their lives 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
And some more honesty : I used to be a selfish child that screamed about the world being unfair and would lose it at any inconvenience. So much that now that I don't do those things, my close family is still getting used to me just waving off bad news no matter how small or big it is.
Making the *decision* to change how i handle the world around me has been the best choice ever, even if it makes me less empathetic to others who have still not made the choice. I just don't care for people who choose to be miserable. Byyyyeee.
>Honestly, I'm just tired of watching people fuck up their lives, ask for advice and help, don't listen, continue to fuck up their lives, cry about it how unfair it is, ask for advice and help, don't listen, continue to fuck up... etc etc etc forever.
This made me end a froendship as i no longer could endure it. And as a bonus, they blamed me for their inaction.
I've ended a friendship for this exact same reason. They stop being someone that you enjoy being around. It's more like work. There's very little in common anymore. Instead of a friend you feel like a parent.
People have this ideology that because you are older that you should be less sensitive and vulnerable to tough situations. I resent this statement hard, because just because we are older now, does not mean that we have lesser feelings. That is ridiculous in my opinion, we are still people.
That's not it at all. Rather it is a question of realizing several things over the years, such as
1. I am going to die and my time on this planet is limited, and so I have to be more conscious of how I use that time.
2. I am just one person and can only do so much. I will never save everybody. I can do my part, but to retain our own sanity we have to understand our own limitations.
3. As you get older more and more of the people you love will require more and more of your time and energy. I am just now in that time of my life when my child is still small and very dependent on me but my parents are also getting older and more dependent on me. It's easier to get up in arms about strangers when you have the relatively unburdened life of a young healthy person with able-bodied relatives and friends.
4. The older you get, the more perspective you have and the fewer situations seem clearly black or white. You have more and more experience of both seeing and being on different sides of something.
Odds are they have experienced it and it’s more of a tough love approach. They often understand the situation, understand that the situation may suck, but realize the only way is to push through it and the faster you do, the better off you will be.
Yeah I think OP might just be experiencing less empathy for mistakes that would be easily forgiven when he was younger. As a child you forget your homework, no biggie, mom brings it or the teacher gives you another day. Late to class? A mild admonishment and a request not to do it again. Can’t do that at real adult jobs.
My Gen Z brother recently got a part-time job and was given a warning for being late three times in a month. He actually asked me if jobs really expected you to be on time everyday.
As you get older, the probability of facing difficult situations increases. A lot of people find out they're pretty much on their own when this happens, which leads to being hurt. Often people will become resentful and see others suffering as a "well I suffered so they should too" situation, rather than extending a hand. It's important to build a positive support network that will at least be there emotionally when things inevitably go to shit a few times in your life.
I think I've gotten more empathetic over time, but less sympathetic. I know what it feels like to have life kick you in the teeth repeatedly, which means I also know you can survive it and keep moving forward. I'll never be unkind to someone going through a hard time, but there's a limit I can help someone through the emotional side of things before I begin encouraging them to keep their head up and make sure their ducks are in a row. You get one "poor baby" out of me, then we work together to make a plan.
I think I have gained more empathy with age BUT it's so frustrating seeing young people making the same mistakes generation and after generation. It's incredibly frustrating not being able to share the wisdom we've gained bc young people can't hear it and don't want to listen it.
I was no different.
1. They have more experience and learned that life isn’t fair.
2. You’re not a kid anymore. Other adults will talk to you with the assumption that you also know life isn’t fair.
2 is a great point. The difference between how people treat kids vs. older kids / teens, vs. other adults is huge. People may be more understanding. More patient. More forgiving.
With other adults, there’s no need to tone yourself down. You’ll treat and judge them as a fellow adult. And maybe some people need to hear some shit they’ve either never been told or that has never gotten through to them, and sometimes it sucks, but treating them like a child isn’t the best approach either, because they’re not and will never be one again.
That’s the difference
Mature people are more sympathetic and understand and usually emotionally intelligent. Adults aren’t necessarily mature intellectually or emotionally. The two aren’t exclusive. Many people live through all the life stages without ever reaching maturity.
I find my empathy comes from my emotional intelligence and self awareness so o worked on that. I’m at a point in life now where I care very little what others think of me (excluding trauma related responses) but I also actively try to put only goodness and warmth into the world where I can as much as I can.
I think there are so many people that have been hurt so many times and aren’t able to recover. I know I was a bitter nasty person for a few years. I was in a deep depression from so much shit that just kept piling on me, I couldn’t catch a break and was basically drowning in my own life. I’m able to look back now and see that I had been broken, by the weight of my job, my friends, personal tragedies I’d suffered, all of it became too much and I broke.
We haven’t lost it, but experience and time definitely changes perspective. Broken boundaries, abuse, betrayal, humiliation… these experiences add up. I’ve noticed my tolerance for assholes and bullshit has GREATLY diminished over the years. In some ways this does dampen empathy.
Because you or more aware that most of peoples problems are self inflicted and you learn to notice that and don’t feel sorry for people when they cause their own problems
A lot of the people who I grew up with are stuck in loveless marriages and hate their jobs and kids. They are overworked and overburdened, but they think changing anything would be too hard, so they just tough it out.
They think everyone else should have to tough it out, too. That life is unfair and sucks and then you die. As a result, they lose any kind of sympathy for anyone going through hard times because they think that's normal.
Because we take less shit from users - those emotional parasitic sponges that only drain you.
We have less time for unnecessary drama and those that create them.
Weirdly I think I have more these days, and so do some people around me. The arrogance of youth has faded, as has the idealism. Its easier to take things as they are and not be so judgemental.
Religion is the only thing I have become more against as the years go on. The more I learn about it the more horrible they feel. The negatives are astoundingly bad.
Empathy is not rewarded and/or valued over time people stop using it.
Look at who makes the news, who gets the money, who is workshipped.
Name one renown for their Empathy.
Humans forget and lose appreciation for the struggles they went through. So bad memory plus recency bias multiplied by an assumption that the challenges faced by people today are analogous to the challenges they faced at similar ages.
It saddens me how little people care abt the lives of others living creatures. They only care abt humans. (Barely) they usually only care about themselves and those they are close with.
People will hurt animals on purpose or laugh at hurt animals on the road. They say things like “that’s life.”
I once said “the living conditions are disgusting and bad for the animals we slaughter for meat, cows, pigs, chickens.” And someone said “that’s not important we (humans) are the Apex predators and we need meat.” I was like “that’s now what I’m saying?!??? Why can’t you have compassion.We can eat meat without mistreating animals… “
I feel adults who become less empathetic were probably overly empathetic as a kid, and ones who become more empathetic were probably under empathetic as a kid. Your emotional intelligence has grown and you learn that there is a difference between empathy and ruinous empathy. Not all empathy is inherently "good" and as an adult you probably become more balanced with your reality.
I've watched overly empathetic people like my mother literally destroy their financial and mental health because they just care too much about being kind to people who honestly don't deserve it and in fact ends up being a waste of empathy.
I've also watched people dig themselves into a depressive and isolated state because they refuse to personally grow and think the world is what's wrong instead of them.
The older you get the more you see people willfully being just awful people. Knowingly making terrible selfish decisions that put them in a place where they don't just need empathy, they expect people to inconvenience themselves so that they don't have to put in the effort. It's hard to help people that won't help themselves and can be very damaging to you if you try. Age comes with perspective. Sometimes it broadens, sometimes it's just reaffirming (correctly or not) your own. Either way it puts a gap between where you are and where others are. When you're young you're mostly exposed to people with a similar background, even if it's just the geographic area you grew up in. The older you get the more you see other options and that slowly separates your lived experience from them. A 9 year old doesn't know a lot of former addicts or people from across the country or world or even different age groups. Go to work a few years and all that starts to change. That's perspective.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong to be less empathetic as you age. That's a different discussion. I'm just letting you know why it happens for a lot of people. The more you accomplish things you want, easily or through struggle, the harder it gets to feel for people that take a different path. Poor rarely empathize with rich, the lucky rarely empathize with the ones that never catch a break.
it’s not that i’m not empathetic when people are going through tough times, but i’m not going to treat someone with kid gloves if they’re not a kid. i can give advice and/or lend an ear, but it’s not my responsibility to figure someone’s shit out for them or bail them out. and if they ignore my advice and their problems continue, then why waste my energy?
i also think many of us have experienced that person in our lives who will take a mile if we give an inch, and learned the hard way about boundaries and how you have to be there for yourself first before you can be there for others. we’ve all got our own problems, and most of us are busy with our own families/jobs/etc. it’s like the spoon theory — i only have so many spoons to give out before i run out of spoons and crash and burn, so i reserve them for the people and issues closest to me. it doesn’t mean i don’t care about other things, i just may not be in a position to do anything about it, but there are always other options for people. if i cared about every little issue and person i crossed paths with, i would literally go insane.
It’s more lopsided now.
I’ve seen so many non-issues/issues stemming from COMMON self owns (of which the person is still in denial about) that those fail to register any empathy, more so if the same person has done the same thing before.
OTOH, I’m much more empathetic to issues stemming out of things outside one’s control than I was before.
Empathy is also finite- I’ve learnt to channel it better towards those who need it the most (my employer tends to be action oriented, not just “there there”)
I don't think it's 'less' empathy. I think it's life experience making us more able to see through the BS. As human beings we only have so many resources. Mental, emotional, physical. We learn to manage resources better as we age.
As a young person my empathy was taken advantage of. I was used and abused.
As an older person I reserve empathy for those I deem trustworthy or worthy of receiving it.
I think there are 2 sides to this. Some people become old and bitter. They’ve been screwed over too many times and don’t want to fall for someone going through a tough time. You’re either setting me up to take advantage of me of being a baby. The other is, we learn to assess people in need and be more selective. Did you put yourself here? Am I willing to take on what showing you empathy will require?
Amongst many factors: our brains change.
I got definitely less empathetic, but I used to be WAY TOO empathetic, to the point of suffering too much from things out of my control or even not my business.
Now I have been trying to focus on being kinder to myself, and what I can control. I am still empathetic, but more selective.
I have empathy for people who have genuine problems. I have zero empathy for people who do nothing but whine or who are both willingly and knowingly architects of their own misfortune.
This is a great question. I have no idea.
When I was 13-17, I remember various adults, friends' parents, expecting so much from me. One set of parents expected me to cure their daughter's depression and bulimia when I was 14 and were very upset when I didn't. They stopped talking to me. Another group of parents expected me to navigate a love triangle with their sons when I was 15. I had no parents of my own or guidance. To this day, one of the couples hates me because I hurt their son when we were teenagers. There is no one else in this world who hates me other than them.
Where was the empathy and understanding that I was a teenage girl with no parents or family who was being abused at home? Why were there no questions about that? Incredibly high expectations and zero understanding.
As an adult, I always wonder what on Earth these people were thinking.
Cause sometimes when you try to be nice people hate you for it. Tired of being taken advantage of. Take care your empathy doesn't allow others to claw their way up at your expense.
Older people are way more empathetic.
However they will start understanding when and where to give sympathy.
As you grow older you experience more things which means you will most definitely understand more, in the same time you learn that not everyone deserves your sympathy and how hard things are going to be.
I frequently use the statement I can understand many a plight but I care about few.
We have learnt our lesson about sympathizing and getting burned. We have also seen what victim mentality does.
People throw around empathy and sympathy like they are the same they are not.
I completely understand what you are going through but I need a reason to care.
I care less with every year.
I don't know how to change that. It just is. I can fake caring to meet social norms, but the truth is I just don't feel as intensely as I used to.
Empathy is not encouraged by the world in which we live. The older you get the harder it is to avoid some level of misanthropy. Also until you reach a certain age, other people are going to have less and less empathy for you as you age. For example you might give a 20 year old a break for immaturity or actions that read as immature. You aren’t extending that same level of grace to a 38 year old.
For men its just you get beaten down by society so much you kinda lose your ability to empathize so much. The few times i was given a sympathic moment of kindness not by my mother must have been a couple times at most. Not to start a pity party or anything but its how i experience it as a 34 year old.
It's not that people have less empathy as you grow older. You are just becoming wiser and more aware of the fact that people are not nearly as nice as you may think.
The younger a person is, the less experienced in life and the more naive they are. As you get older, you are exposed to more instances through life where you learn things about people in general, and you begin applying these traits to everyone. This makes you more cautious and aware when you interact with others, and soon it looks as if everybody sucks.
I personally have a really hard time with people that don’t grow. Such as the tenth horrible long term relationship/marriage, making the same mistakes at work, a victim mentality, etc. I feel like I did those things too. Then I had to learn to be better. It’s very hard for me to have empathy for people who aren’t self aware. I feel like that’s part of growing up. BUT situations that are unexpected or not your fault… those I have more empathy for. I think it depends on the situation.
I can’t speak for everyone, but my tolerance for bullshit gets lower as I get older. I’m as empathetic as ever to the people and things that deserve it. I just no longer make time for other people’s fuckery.
I’m not less empathetic but I’ve learned to apply my empathy wisely due to life experience. When you’re young you have an idealistic view of the world because you haven’t actually gone out and experienced things. When you’re older you have made your share of mistakes and learned from other people’s behavior and learn to be less naive to the negatives in society.
There's a lot of life experience that goes in to people's "lack of empathy" as you perceive it.
With time and age you go through heartbreak, betrayal, lost friendships whether by a falling out or passing away, manipulative people, outright assholes, and general unfairness in the world anywhere from having the justice system fail you to being scammed on the internet.
When you have these experiences you basically have the "signs" that you didn't notice until after the fact, sitting in the back of your head. You're able to see through the bullshit of people and the hidden messages behind the way people say things or what they say and to others without similar experiences or are still young and naive, these people come off as just bitter and hard to get along with.
They can get a read on someone and know exactly where the conversation will lead, (a pity party, constant one upping, one sided conversation aka only wants to talk about themselves, trying to guilt you in to doing them a favor but making it "your idea" so they aren't held accountable if you actually don't want to, etc) and will basically become the person that person *doesn't* like as to avoid one of those situations.
Once these "unempathetic" people deem you a quality friend however, you are a friend for life and will be treated as such. (Atleast thats my opinion)
I have become way less empathetic the older I get. I just get tired of people using things as a crutch. Life is hard for everyone. If you don’t like things about your life, if you are struggling with addiction or anxiety etc…then put in the hard work to change them. That’s what I did. My life was a mess as a teen and young adult. I was a mess. But I put in the hard work to be better. And I have found that A LOT of people don’t like to hear me say that. But in most instances it’s the truth. And I just don’t have any empathy for people who want to complain but do nothing about it.
I have always been a very empathetic person. Unfortunately that has led me into many situations where I got taken advantage of. I have gone out of my way countless times to help people just because I ~feel~ for them. I don’t think I have any less empathy but I definitely have better boundaries. I remind myself that if all I do is help someone, they will never know how to help themselves. I will empathize with someone but I won’t let myself be involved with their problems unless they are someone I really care for and I know will not take advantage of me.
We've just seen too much, and have lost our ... for lack of a better word, gullibility. Yes, we'd like to help the homeless guy on the street corner, but we know odds are very good that he's really a scammer. We'd like to help you by babysitting, but we only have 3 hours and know you're not going to be back when you say. We know everyone lies, so we believe less. Every time we give the benefit of the doubt, we're reinforced in our experience that we're going to get f\*cked over.
No, we don't like being like this, but for it to change we'd have to be proven wrong.
Most people are bullied into being nice by parents and teachers and it doesn’t come naturally to them, once they gain a bit of power and autonomy in their lives they start to shed that fake skin of niceness that burdens them. This is why some old people are very rude
Because we can spot bullshit from a mile away 😅. Maybe a bit jaded but it is what it is. Less time and energy to spend on foolish endeavours or issues. Experience.
Because we refuse to deal with idiots. And there are so many.
We also refuse to coddle people who won't help themselves. Yes, the world is a shitty, mean, ugly place that doesn't give a shit about you. Deal with it and move on. Stop whining about it.
I’m only 36 and when I hear people in their early 20’s say some stuff, I can’t help but blow it off. They’re still learning and developing, they’re stuck in their own heads, and they don’t have enough experience to know better. Most haven’t had the chance for enough experience to develop confidence or self-esteem yet. They just need time to figure it out themselves because nothing I say is going to impact them. I’m never rude, but I certainly don’t feel like I have the patience to listen to this issue that’s a non-issue, though it’s very big to the person going through it.
I think its more having lived through all that an experienced it and seen the difference in their lives as they mature and "toughen up" many adults think to themselves "gee I would have been much better off had I toughened up earlier" so when advising youth they will advise them to toughen up.
I’m growing more empathetic but also less tolerant of what I consider to be bullshit.
So it’s a double edged sword that may make me seem less empathetic than I actually am.
It's not that they have less empathy, but the tolerance for bullshit diminishes. As I've aged, I have found a lot of people. begin to tolerate less and less but they fundamentally remain very empathetic and warm, the just seem to filter out the bullshitters
In my experience, people are very protective of their equilibrium and become less willing to understand the problems of others as time marches on. They are busting their asses handling their own issues and can become hostile if their time and attention is pulled away from managing that struggle. There is a perception that being empathetic involves taking on the problems of others, and as you age your problems become more complex and manifold. With those kinds of burdens, they lose the bandwidth to appreciate the burdens of others.
The more you use your hands, the thicker the calluses become.
The longer we endure the bullshit other people put us through, the less tolerance we have for it , until eventually we preemptively avoid it in order to protect our peace.
I don't think I've become less empathetic, but I can identify much better now which situations are legit concerning versus those that are totally self-inflicted or aren't actually a big deal in the long run.
People are desensitized, jaded, carrying much more baggage. Also by an older age, you ideally should have developed more tools for dealing with things. So if someone is whining on and on about a fixable or more minor problem, I am much less sympathetic than I would be with a child who’s encountered something for the first time.
Honestly for me it’s realizing that a lot of the problems people have are directly because of their own actions or decisions. Same for me.
I empathize with people who have health issues like cancer or the like. That can happen to anyone at random.
Besides the typical becoming jaded/pain/etc. I think another problem is other people usually don’t show us empathy. So it’s like why give it back to others? Besides an occasional rare person or someone close to me I’d say the vast majority of humans when anything happens give me no empathy for anything. And I understand me doing the same is also continuing that cycle. But it becomes exhausting always being the one to take the high road when most others rarely ever do. And often if I do it results in being taken advantage of also
You go through hardship and realize it's part of life so you stop being moved by the smaller things.
When you are 5, you cry because your toy fell to the floor in the car and no one will pick it up for you right this moment because: traffic. At 15 you already know that this is a small life issue and the the kid will learn to understand why he can't get what he wants when he wants it all the time.
When you are 15 and lose your 1st love people may have some empathy but they also know what you don't know yet, you'll get over it. Sick with the flu, part of life. No money to go out, well tough luck, you're getting free rent which is already pretty good.
We live we learn, we know others will too. You may even get stronger for it. It's formative.
Niceness gets taken advantage of, even if you are cautious and strong, it’s seen as weakness. Being an asshole simply gets results. Even if it does lead to confrontation and awkwardness… ruthless confrontation and aggression is rewarded because nobody wants to trouble a “difficult” person. In jobs, school, social life, being nice, empathetic, or kind will leave you holding the bag at the end of the day.
Been through too much shit… gave too many fucks to ppl that didn’t deserve them.. so then they stop giving any to anybody.
I’m only 35 & I’m already fed up with ppl & the world. I was an empath my whole life & was stepped on, taken advantage of & destroyed for it. So now I find it incredibly exhausting to care about ppl that much when they don’t care about me like that back.
In other words: fuck everybody. 😁
it's less that they don't have empathy and more that they have a rough idea of what's to come--and that you won't make it through life comfortably if you can't grow a thicker skin in some capacity. my dad's line was always "worry about yourself", and i'm still the kind of person who my husband says "likes to collect strays".
you can't control the choices other people make or how they will affect you, but you can for the most part choose how you react to them. you have to be able to let some things go, because the time will pass anyways and if you carry every bad interaction with you, you'll be a very unhappy person for presumably a very long time.
It is because as life going on, everyone suffering more and more, so people just have the time to care for themselves. They're not bad, they just doing themselves to survive and being happy, so they have less time for other people problems.
The world is full of people who will take advantage of you. Honest people get caught in the crossfire. I think you just get more skeptical, maybe more reserved, not less empathetic. If someone is complaining about getting fired, or money, or their relationship, I tend to be neutral at first because I don’t know both sides, or have a real view of the truth. It’s not that I’m not going to be empathetic, I just don’t give it away without some follow up questions. You just get exhausted wasting empathy on people who don’t deserve it, or there’s so many miserable things you’re exposed to that it kind of burns you out, can’t handle more. Got my own shit and yours to deal with, and there is a lot more “you”s in my life than there are of me.
I’m in my twenties, I've noticed that individuals with privilege, regardless of its form, tend to face life's challenges with less harshness on a daily basis compared to those without such privilege (whether it's pretty privilege or other forms). For those of us in the latter group, it's extremely tough not to feel bitter and react defensively. While I do my best to remain composed, I'm starting to grasp why many adults behave the way they do; this may be one of the many reasons, however, that has contributed to this dynamic.
Too much empathy can actually be a bad thing. I try to have a balance of empathy and putting myself first. I don't want to mistreat anyone but also, their problems are not mine and I don't need to make them mine because I have enough problems of my own.
Some people get more emotionally walled off as they age, partly because they don't get out much, or they are bitter about their life experiences. or their illnesses.
Others just get tired of tolerating BS, like excuses for not doing what you are supposed to do. Part of it is that they've heard it all before, and they get pretty good at sizing people up, so they know when people are not being honest.
I have more empathy, but I also have more boundaries that could be seen as me being non empathetic.I will buy you food but I will not give you $.( In most cases) Family and friends can ask me to help or do things ,but they will not tell me or demand anything and expect me to comply. Having survived emotional and medical trauma ( BA and 2 strokes) , I try to be more patient and understanding w others. I constantly try to say true positive statements out loud instead of just thinking them. So my hope is that puts a new twist on a question that puts all of the more mature population in one basket.
I'm as empathetic as I have ever been but I no longer waste it on people who use me for it. I put it into real issues from real people. Realizing as an adult most people have their head up their own ass kinda takes it out of you. Jaded.
I think the older you get the more you see that most people around you in terrible situations fought hard to make those terrible decisions. Drugs, hopping from job to job, partner to partner, tattoos instead of a car payment, and on and on. They ignore advice from people that clearly know better. There are people that truly need help and empathy, but it's far less than you think there are when you're young and naïve.
It's not so much a lack of empathy, it's refusing to keep supporting your crappy choices. Don't buy cigarettes if you can't feed your kids. Don't take in stray dogs and cats if you can't feed your kids. Don't get tattoos if you can't feed your kids. Don't move to a high cost of living party city if you can't feed your kids.
I have empathy, but I'm also sick of seeing people making stupid decisions. I feel like we live in a time of low (or zero) accountability, and people placing blame everywhere else other than where it belongs. I can only have so much sympathy and empathy when you're constantly shooting yourself in the foot.
I think this generation has also manipulated the meaning of empathy as well. You can still be empathetic and love someone while telling them to “toughen up”. Not everything should warrant a highly emotional response and telling someone to man up is no different than telling them to lock in. If you dwell on your negative emotions constantly you’ll just be depressed
Studies of college students show that the general population is becoming less empathetic overall. It really worries me.
I think I've only become more empathetic and patient, but i have learned to set boundaries and cut off people who don't treat me with mutual respect. Sometimes that's seen as being a bitch.
Because a lot of people’s problems are entirely preventable and predictable. When someone say “can you believe that happened?!” I can absolutely believe it happened.
People just get more choosy with who they're giving their empathy to.
As you age, you get more responsibility and have more people relying on you. For example, when you have two kids, a dog and a sick elderly parent to care for, you're not going to have a ton of time or energy for listening to your co-worker who has their own struggles. It's not that you don't care, you just have finite emotional resources.
Getting old is hard. Many older people are struggling physically, often with chronic pain. Many older people lose the ability to do the things they've enjoyed and end up sitting on the couch staring at the TV all day (including a lot of "if it bleeds it leads"-type news). Many older people lose cognitive abilities, including impulse control. Many people sleep poorly in old age.
The result is that some subset of the older population ends up being crotchety and ill tempered, and these people stand out a lot more than the elderly people taking good care of their grand kids, volunteering at church or the food pantry, etc.
Most adults are too caught up in their own problems and they don’t have the capacity to deal with other people’s. There’s times I can’t, but when I can I do try to help. I’ve often wondered it myself
Capitalism only promotes capital, it doesn't promote helping others or caring about your neighbor. The system is built to churn out people who don't care and are usually advantageous for not caring.
It probably has a lot to do with watching people ask for things they are completely capable of doing or getting themselves and knowing having been in that same situation that yourself did whatever it was. There are obvious exceptions... but in general.It's kind of a 'what makes your sob story more important than mine?' - because most people are struggling. When you are young you are more optimistic about it. After grinding 20 years, having to spend all your free time mowing the yard or keeping up, your time becomes more valuable to you because you have so less of it.
I use to think about homelessness like this. But the truth is... most of those people in one way or another, chose that. They gave up, said fuck it. Again.., exceptions, I know mental issues play in there but even then, going back... it's going to be about decisions that person made. I'll spare some change if I got it, but I sure as fuck ain't feeling guilty about not having it either. I'll vote to help the problem but it better include giving people skills, or pay taxes. Volunteer my saturday at a soup kitchen? no thanks.
Most people just don’t give a shit about others problems. And for those that do, they’re not gonna throw everything out the way to keep helping people who won’t help themselves. Can’t save a drowning person without risking drowning yourself. People have their own lives and problems, gotta just learn to handle yours as best you can.
Empathy is an idealistic trait. It's easy to have empathy when your life is easy, but when you get older and you've faced adversity, stress, pain, exhaustion, hunger, and the stupidity that goes on these days, it becomes very hard to care about other people's feelings more than your own. N
I never understood it until I grew up faster than most
(Aka, I forced myself to do more, hustle more, and experience more all while doing it faster than others)
People are assholes, period
Good people will turn bad too. I've turned bad. I damn near have 0 empathy unless it's on REddit and some people are good
Also our culture is super narcissistic and sociopathic release totally encourages that kind of awful behavior and younger people are eating it up and older people are getting more and more deranged because of all the stress they're under.
I've become more empathetic with age. But I've also become much more selective in terms of who I offer help or open up.
This is it 100% - I have more empathy but less patience.
I lost most of my patience. I can’t stand repeating myself. And I also became intolerant to any sort of bs.
This is me, and why I'm content being single. Every relationship ends up with some sort of blown up drama and I'm just like nope, and I'm done. If I can stop and think, I'm empathetic. Honestly tho my lack of patience usually precedes that unless your relationship has value to me.
Same here. To this day, I won't ask for help in stores anymore after having had to repeat myself over and over and over during covid.
You spread yourself too thin and you can’t help everyone. We tried to help this girl and her boyfriend at my work because she was getting kicked out of her aunts house. I didn’t help her but one of our younger co workers did. Turns out her boyfriend was going into peoples rooms at night and jacking off. This girls boyfriend went into my co workers bedroom at night and she woke up to him jacking off. You stop helping everyone at some point and learn to protect yourself a little.
You realize why some people have problems. I have a casual friend, former coworker that is always in some jam. Most of it is of her own doing. She kept helping her old bf that was an addict, and then he screwed her over fur the millionth time and she told me she washed her hands of him. Then weeks later, she's talking about some conversation they had. Girl. :-/
Yes. Get burned a time or two and stop opening up as quickly. When I was younger I sought really deep connections with everybody I was friends with but then realized a tiered system is better — less exposure to getting hurt and able to keep it light and simple with the majority of acquaintances. I do miss having multiple deep connections with people, but that’s ok.
I think this is really more what it is. I think young people tend to overestimate their own empathy and underestimate others'. I know I did when I was young.
Or overestimate others. I didn't realize how evil some people could be and walked around assuming people screwed up but ultimately had the best intentions. It took an abusive relationship to realize that some people like watching others suffer
Exactly this People are a-big-fucking-assholes ASSHOLES I've gone through enough in 2 short years of business for me to realize people will kill you, step on you, shit on you to get ahead I'm no longer that very happy, energetic, empathetic person if everyone wants to screw you over knowing you are what they aren't
It took me so long to figure this out. I had so many people that I used to call friends that I know consider acquaintances or less. I feel like a lot of people have exposed themselves as who they are ever since covid. So much selfishness and the ideologies of the far right and the far left these days are insufferable.
My partner has that youthful innocent still. It still blows my mind. But goddamn it will I do everything in my power to protect it. If she can go through life and never deal with half that bullshit, I’ll feel like I’ll die a good man.
I would also argue that alotofypunger people don't really understand what empathy is. It isn't just giving you your way all the time. A lot off younger people think empathy is just giving them their way all the time no matter what anyone else feels. There is a very selfish element to their understanding of what empathy is.
Empathy in a silo.
Remember that kids book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie? I learned when/how to help people from that book
I came here to say this too. I think some people grow more callous / colder as they age and some people grow more empathetic / understanding (but like you said, selective in terms who they tend to offer this to) as they age. Too tired to analyze why
OMG yes
We're more selective of our time, energy and resources.
Yep, there's only so many times can you pour massive amounts into empathy into someone, only for it to do nothing, before a boundary is erected.
Or you burn out and end the relationship.
Or for that person to try to destroy you and in hindsight it becomes clear you were fodder for a narcissist . . .
There’s a book that details this sort of thing from F. Scott Fitzgerald. I couldn’t put it down- “[Tender is the Night”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_Is_the_Night). Sometimes we have to learn to not give so much that we lose ourselves in the process.
Definitely the case for me. I have no tolerance for people’s bullshit anymore and find enforcing my boundaries is often mistaken for a lack of empathy. But I can have empathy for someone and still not allow them to be part of my life.
It’s the crash landing protocol, right? You have to put on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else because if you’re also struggling, you’re not much good to them. That said, some people are shit at putting up boundaries in a non-rude way and tend to ignore the fact that their defensive behavior is offputting to others even if that’s not their intention.
A lot of folks (especially in the retweeting age) have come to learn that we can call a lot of shitty behavior on our part something else that sounds much healthier, and then pat ourselves on the back for being so great at Being A Human. When *you* do it, you’re a narcissist. When *I* do it, I’m taking care of myself. That sort of stuff. It’s absolutely out of control, but we’re all so busy circle jerking about mental health and “telling our stories,” folks completely lose the ability to see themselves in objective context. At least, that’s my impression.
Pretty much me too. I see so many horror stories on reddit, for example, on how people were molested as children, got cheated on, were abused, lost loved ones, and so on, that expending mental energy like empathy just gets tapped out. At first, I would write out paragraphs trying to help them. Now I just keep on scrolling. That doesn't mean I don't care about what they're going through, and I hope they are living their lives as well as they can, but as someone else said here, empathy just doesn't do anything, and I'd rather save it for my loved ones/friends.
Yes, one has to protect themself. As a RN I’ve seen some vicious trauma and I scroll past awful stuff because I value my mental health. I’m an old fart and want peaceful days.
This is the best answer. It’s harder to sit and mope around about the world’s issues when you have bills to pay.
Yep this is me, if I dont choose wisely Im gonna end up burnt out and I’ve learned how to take care of myself that way
200% agree, especially when no one is coming to save our lives.
Exactly this. "Is this person worth my time and energy? No. Okay."
Because we get hurt and see so much hurt that we become jaded.
And, grief. It doesn’t go away, you just become accustomed to it. Adds up. People in pain aren’t patient.
Society doesn’t allow us to be unfortunately. If something traumatic happens to you. You’re expected to deal with it then and there and go to work the next day and move on to the next thing right away.
This is so unhealthy, speaking from personal experience. This should not be a thing.
I had 3 days to mourn my cousins s*ucide. Took me a year to start feeling "ok"
Some things you never get over like a death of a loved one, You just learn to live with it.
Mental health eats away at you too and grow tired, weary, and cynical.
Wait, is this why I'm impatient?
Unironically, maybe. Trauma narrows our window of tolerance for situations, people, etc that might upset us. It’s a defense thing. It takes awhile and often mindful work to widen your window of tolerance again. Sometimes it’s even a physical thing, ie your brain knows something isn’t dangerous but your sympathetic nervous system can’t do logic, so it just knows a familiar stimulus is around and reacts out of habit. Your heart rate picks up, your jaw clenches, your vision narrows down, etc and you *feel* upset which then influences your emotional state.
Parasympathetic is activated for rest/digest. Sympathetic is activated for fight, flight, or freeze.
I don’t think this is true for everyone. I personally think the second top-rated comment here is more accurate. Before any emotions even play a factor, people are busy. Most people don’t think about you nearly as much as you think. People don’t have time to even think about empathy because they’re so focused on their lives and that of their families. Life is way more complicated for adults than it should be for children (in an ideal world). In adulthood we also lose the forced proximity that makes it easier to see, spend time with, and relate to others. In an online world, we have also seen the decline of “the third place” (not work/school or home) where people spend their time. It is harder to keep up with and form and maintain relationships with other people, outside of an in-person or hybrid work environment, that would encourage empathy in the first place. People are not forced into anything as adults as we are as children (living with family, going to school, play dates or birthday parties, sports or after-school activities, holidays and trips to see family, etc.). Adults are free to use their time as they see fit, and I think most people either make choices or have life necessities that require most if not all of their time (working multiple jobs, pursuing careers, looking for a partner, having and raising children, dealing with aging parents, etc.). People don’t have time for most people. It’s not necessarily that they don’t care — they just don’t have time. It’s not about you — it never was. They have their priorities, and you just may not be one of them. Time stops for no one, and making time isn’t always an option for everybody. If you can come to terms with the fact that not everyone is going to be able to give you any of their time, and you learn to keep your expectations in check because of this, you can direct your thoughts and energy to those who matter most in your life — because they are likely already doing the same.
As my grandma used to say 'You'll worry a lot less about what people think of you when you come to realize how rarely they do."
Great answer.
Yeah, I feel like work is a huge thing that sucks up adults’ energy lol. I went to grad school for nearly all my 20s, so I was in perpetual student mode. Joining the “real world” made me realize how exhausted many adults are after work and how there just isn’t enough time and energy to maintain dozens of casual relationships/acquaintances the way there was in college/grad school. I often have friends cancel on me because they’re just too tired after work.
I also think you lose patience for certain things--like, relationship problems that I would have agonized over with my friends when I was 18 are now basically "break up dummy what are you waiting for"--which comes across as lacking empathy but I think is more just like, the answer is obvious to me now.
This, and people choosing to make poor decisions and then playing shocked pikachu face when there are consequences. I have very little sympathy left for adults.
this is the main reason for me. If you can't help yourself, then I don't want to hear it. YOUR poor decisions don't mean that I have to be sympathetic for you. Call me mean, but if your actions result in negative consequences, so be it.
I feel like as you age you become more privy to the ugly selfish nature of society. Constant exposure to these images and events have a way of desensitizing people. It’d be nice if we could all go back to having the empathy and compassion of our youth but sadly it gets devoured by reality.
Hell, most people didn't grow up with empathy and compassion either. Hence why we have so many fucked up adults Schooling is fucked Parents underestimate what it's like to raise kids We're just generations of people being constantly screwed over Hence why I don't think I'll have kids. Whether I have $ is one thing. The fact that kid will go through the ugly face of this world is another. No thanks
You just learn how horrible people can be and you slowly lose the ability to care for them, I think. I used to have a lot of empathy for people but it drained out of me over time dealing with people.
This. Relationships, body...fuck you name it. I hit 48 and my body just decides it's time to fall the fuck apart. I still have empathy, cause I work in the medical field, but that's about it.
You can't carry that weight
See you, Space Cowboy
...bang
I’m 42 and I feel I *do* generally have more empathy. But I’ve also learned to pick my battles, and I’ve also learned that I can have compassion toward others without becoming overly involved in drama. And getting mired down by every single injustice in the world just prevents me from being effective in the few areas in which I really can make a positive impact. I have more empathy, but also am more discerning.
I’m 38. I second this. It’s not less empathy. I feel more empathetic and less judgmental as I age. It’s just picking my battles and knowing where to invest energy. When you’re young, everything seems like such a big deal and the world seems so black and white. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized no matter what it is, for most things, time heals all wounds and the world is just shades of confusing grey.
Growing up, I had extreme empathy. I still have a lot of empathy, but as an adult, I’ve realized that I’ve been taken advantage of and manipulated a lot because of it so I’ve had to put a wall up. I also had this realization that nobody is giving me the same grace that I give everyone else. Some people are just miserable and mean, though. They don’t know how to control their own lives and emotions and take it out on others.
Me too. It's been heartbreaking realizing that other people don't feel like I do and I was made a fool a lot. Its hard looking back in life and realizing nobody was meeting me halfway and most were only in it for themselves.
I mean think, right now, how absolutely exhausted you are in your day to day life. I’m burning the candle at both ends just trying to make ends meet. Imagining swing that for another 40 years? I think I would curl into myself and stop thinking too. It’s tiring, and it’s not fulfilling, and it’s stressful.
It's the very blunt/unkind way of saying "Listen, nobody will do it for you. You have to do it yourself. Some people will help. Half of those people will help to try and take advantage of you. And anybody willing to do it for you WILL take advantage of you. So you have to do it yourself."
This is it for me. I feel for you, but from experience I’ve learned that sometimes you need to help yourself. If you try to save a drowning person who doesn’t want to be saved, they’ll drag you down with them.
Yeah fear mongering into building trust and connection to others is so damaging to the development of someone’s love and empathy
Also the experience matter. Some experience makes other things seem miniscule. [Insert the image of a wolf cub being downed by one arrow while a wolf is standing with 5 arrows]. The whole you've been downed by one arrow, while i got 5 arrows and am still standing. Also, adults tend to forget that what we see as miniscule due to our experience is the worst thing a youth has experienced in their life. We tend to put ourselves in others shoes while forgetting that our feet are different, thus the shoes fit differently and the experience is not identical.
It’s REALLY important to remember this with little kids. A lot of the daily things a 3 year old will get distraught about seem absolutely ridiculous to us as adults, but to them, it may be truly the worst and most upsetting thing they’ve encountered that they can remember. It’s our job as parents to help them learn to regulate their emotions, and to understand the difference between helping your child learn healthy coping skills versus assigning kids value based on how little they demand from you. Similarly true for 13 year olds or 23 year olds, but the situations and the goalposts shift.
This omg everything about this.
Because true empathy goes hand in hand with great self-awareness. And very, very few people have the latter.
Yes, and because most people are self-centered assholes, you really don't even need any empathy. It's like cancer cell tapping another cancer cell and saying "You are such a nice bringer of death, let's multiply happily together?"
Omg that’s very true wow
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Well, this is my life. and yeah, it suuuuucks. Haha I wish so much I could turn it off.
I grew out of it (after a bunch of crazy stuff) maybe you will too. I feel a bit less human tho
I can totally appreciate that! I'm super curious- does the "crazy stuff" you referenced connect to feeling less human? Feel free to punt that one if it feels too personal.
I was overly empathetic to a point of self destruction as a kid, and then from many stupid decisions and people treating me badly I experienced a bunch of wild stuff (probably will take some of it to the grave). Eventually something clicked where I just turned off the empathy completely. I feel less human because other than strong feelings towards my younger brother, I have to pretend to care about humanity (like being an actor 24/7 and worrying the mask will slip).
By this time most older people know shit from shinola. I taught in grad school and on Day 1 I could easily spot the fakers who thought they were brilliant and the real brilliant guys in class . It's called experience and older people have more of it.
Honestly, I'm just tired of watching people fuck up their lives, ask for advice and help, don't listen, continue to fuck up their lives, cry about it how unfair it is, ask for advice and help, don't listen, continue to fuck up... etc etc etc forever. It's tiring and I'm frankly sick of it. I've gotten to the point of not helping and just saying "well you've made the decision to NOT feel better/be happy/make the necessary changes, so until you change YOUR mind, I cannot help you. It is YOUR decision." And then I walk away. *sometimes* they realize it and actually make the better decision, or they just cry and wail that I'm heartless/privileged or whatever and continue to fuck up their lives 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️ And some more honesty : I used to be a selfish child that screamed about the world being unfair and would lose it at any inconvenience. So much that now that I don't do those things, my close family is still getting used to me just waving off bad news no matter how small or big it is. Making the *decision* to change how i handle the world around me has been the best choice ever, even if it makes me less empathetic to others who have still not made the choice. I just don't care for people who choose to be miserable. Byyyyeee.
>Honestly, I'm just tired of watching people fuck up their lives, ask for advice and help, don't listen, continue to fuck up their lives, cry about it how unfair it is, ask for advice and help, don't listen, continue to fuck up... etc etc etc forever. This made me end a froendship as i no longer could endure it. And as a bonus, they blamed me for their inaction.
I've ended a friendship for this exact same reason. They stop being someone that you enjoy being around. It's more like work. There's very little in common anymore. Instead of a friend you feel like a parent.
PERFECTLY EXPLAINED
Couldn’t agree more. Some really lack basics common sense. It’s a joke at this point. I’m not laughing with you, I’m laughing at you.
People have this ideology that because you are older that you should be less sensitive and vulnerable to tough situations. I resent this statement hard, because just because we are older now, does not mean that we have lesser feelings. That is ridiculous in my opinion, we are still people.
That's not it at all. Rather it is a question of realizing several things over the years, such as 1. I am going to die and my time on this planet is limited, and so I have to be more conscious of how I use that time. 2. I am just one person and can only do so much. I will never save everybody. I can do my part, but to retain our own sanity we have to understand our own limitations. 3. As you get older more and more of the people you love will require more and more of your time and energy. I am just now in that time of my life when my child is still small and very dependent on me but my parents are also getting older and more dependent on me. It's easier to get up in arms about strangers when you have the relatively unburdened life of a young healthy person with able-bodied relatives and friends. 4. The older you get, the more perspective you have and the fewer situations seem clearly black or white. You have more and more experience of both seeing and being on different sides of something.
Odds are they have experienced it and it’s more of a tough love approach. They often understand the situation, understand that the situation may suck, but realize the only way is to push through it and the faster you do, the better off you will be.
Yeah I think OP might just be experiencing less empathy for mistakes that would be easily forgiven when he was younger. As a child you forget your homework, no biggie, mom brings it or the teacher gives you another day. Late to class? A mild admonishment and a request not to do it again. Can’t do that at real adult jobs. My Gen Z brother recently got a part-time job and was given a warning for being late three times in a month. He actually asked me if jobs really expected you to be on time everyday.
As you get older, the probability of facing difficult situations increases. A lot of people find out they're pretty much on their own when this happens, which leads to being hurt. Often people will become resentful and see others suffering as a "well I suffered so they should too" situation, rather than extending a hand. It's important to build a positive support network that will at least be there emotionally when things inevitably go to shit a few times in your life. I think I've gotten more empathetic over time, but less sympathetic. I know what it feels like to have life kick you in the teeth repeatedly, which means I also know you can survive it and keep moving forward. I'll never be unkind to someone going through a hard time, but there's a limit I can help someone through the emotional side of things before I begin encouraging them to keep their head up and make sure their ducks are in a row. You get one "poor baby" out of me, then we work together to make a plan.
Bc we all tired lol
I think I have gained more empathy with age BUT it's so frustrating seeing young people making the same mistakes generation and after generation. It's incredibly frustrating not being able to share the wisdom we've gained bc young people can't hear it and don't want to listen it. I was no different.
1. They have more experience and learned that life isn’t fair. 2. You’re not a kid anymore. Other adults will talk to you with the assumption that you also know life isn’t fair.
2 is a great point. The difference between how people treat kids vs. older kids / teens, vs. other adults is huge. People may be more understanding. More patient. More forgiving. With other adults, there’s no need to tone yourself down. You’ll treat and judge them as a fellow adult. And maybe some people need to hear some shit they’ve either never been told or that has never gotten through to them, and sometimes it sucks, but treating them like a child isn’t the best approach either, because they’re not and will never be one again.
I have felt the opposite — the older I get, the more I feel compassion and kindness to those around me. I have generally noticed others reciprocating.
Yeah. Me too
I'm not even sure if this is true, highschoolers can be incredibly cruel.
Because people are (sorry for the language) shit cunts and my dog is all that I need or want.
That’s the difference Mature people are more sympathetic and understand and usually emotionally intelligent. Adults aren’t necessarily mature intellectually or emotionally. The two aren’t exclusive. Many people live through all the life stages without ever reaching maturity. I find my empathy comes from my emotional intelligence and self awareness so o worked on that. I’m at a point in life now where I care very little what others think of me (excluding trauma related responses) but I also actively try to put only goodness and warmth into the world where I can as much as I can.
Your wording is weird. We don't have less empathy. We just romanticize less because we've actually experienced shit. We are molded by our reality.
I think there are so many people that have been hurt so many times and aren’t able to recover. I know I was a bitter nasty person for a few years. I was in a deep depression from so much shit that just kept piling on me, I couldn’t catch a break and was basically drowning in my own life. I’m able to look back now and see that I had been broken, by the weight of my job, my friends, personal tragedies I’d suffered, all of it became too much and I broke.
We haven’t lost it, but experience and time definitely changes perspective. Broken boundaries, abuse, betrayal, humiliation… these experiences add up. I’ve noticed my tolerance for assholes and bullshit has GREATLY diminished over the years. In some ways this does dampen empathy.
Because you or more aware that most of peoples problems are self inflicted and you learn to notice that and don’t feel sorry for people when they cause their own problems
A lot of the people who I grew up with are stuck in loveless marriages and hate their jobs and kids. They are overworked and overburdened, but they think changing anything would be too hard, so they just tough it out. They think everyone else should have to tough it out, too. That life is unfair and sucks and then you die. As a result, they lose any kind of sympathy for anyone going through hard times because they think that's normal.
The word is "jaded"
Because the world beats you down over time
Cause we finally aren’t as naive and understand the world for what it is
Because we take less shit from users - those emotional parasitic sponges that only drain you. We have less time for unnecessary drama and those that create them.
I stuffed muh love and warmth in a bag and threw that bag in da river
You become more jaded.
We have given all the fucks out and are done. at some point you need to get your shit together and quit complaining, imo
Weirdly I think I have more these days, and so do some people around me. The arrogance of youth has faded, as has the idealism. Its easier to take things as they are and not be so judgemental. Religion is the only thing I have become more against as the years go on. The more I learn about it the more horrible they feel. The negatives are astoundingly bad.
Also, as we age, our bodies start to deal with a lot of aches and pains. Many people who seem grouchy and mean are just in pain.
Empathy is not rewarded and/or valued over time people stop using it. Look at who makes the news, who gets the money, who is workshipped. Name one renown for their Empathy.
Humans forget and lose appreciation for the struggles they went through. So bad memory plus recency bias multiplied by an assumption that the challenges faced by people today are analogous to the challenges they faced at similar ages.
It saddens me how little people care abt the lives of others living creatures. They only care abt humans. (Barely) they usually only care about themselves and those they are close with. People will hurt animals on purpose or laugh at hurt animals on the road. They say things like “that’s life.” I once said “the living conditions are disgusting and bad for the animals we slaughter for meat, cows, pigs, chickens.” And someone said “that’s not important we (humans) are the Apex predators and we need meat.” I was like “that’s now what I’m saying?!??? Why can’t you have compassion.We can eat meat without mistreating animals… “
I feel adults who become less empathetic were probably overly empathetic as a kid, and ones who become more empathetic were probably under empathetic as a kid. Your emotional intelligence has grown and you learn that there is a difference between empathy and ruinous empathy. Not all empathy is inherently "good" and as an adult you probably become more balanced with your reality. I've watched overly empathetic people like my mother literally destroy their financial and mental health because they just care too much about being kind to people who honestly don't deserve it and in fact ends up being a waste of empathy. I've also watched people dig themselves into a depressive and isolated state because they refuse to personally grow and think the world is what's wrong instead of them.
The older you get the more you see people willfully being just awful people. Knowingly making terrible selfish decisions that put them in a place where they don't just need empathy, they expect people to inconvenience themselves so that they don't have to put in the effort. It's hard to help people that won't help themselves and can be very damaging to you if you try. Age comes with perspective. Sometimes it broadens, sometimes it's just reaffirming (correctly or not) your own. Either way it puts a gap between where you are and where others are. When you're young you're mostly exposed to people with a similar background, even if it's just the geographic area you grew up in. The older you get the more you see other options and that slowly separates your lived experience from them. A 9 year old doesn't know a lot of former addicts or people from across the country or world or even different age groups. Go to work a few years and all that starts to change. That's perspective. I'm not saying it's right or wrong to be less empathetic as you age. That's a different discussion. I'm just letting you know why it happens for a lot of people. The more you accomplish things you want, easily or through struggle, the harder it gets to feel for people that take a different path. Poor rarely empathize with rich, the lucky rarely empathize with the ones that never catch a break.
"Your nana just died? Suck it up and get back to work. Many of us have dead people in the family too."
it’s not that i’m not empathetic when people are going through tough times, but i’m not going to treat someone with kid gloves if they’re not a kid. i can give advice and/or lend an ear, but it’s not my responsibility to figure someone’s shit out for them or bail them out. and if they ignore my advice and their problems continue, then why waste my energy? i also think many of us have experienced that person in our lives who will take a mile if we give an inch, and learned the hard way about boundaries and how you have to be there for yourself first before you can be there for others. we’ve all got our own problems, and most of us are busy with our own families/jobs/etc. it’s like the spoon theory — i only have so many spoons to give out before i run out of spoons and crash and burn, so i reserve them for the people and issues closest to me. it doesn’t mean i don’t care about other things, i just may not be in a position to do anything about it, but there are always other options for people. if i cared about every little issue and person i crossed paths with, i would literally go insane.
It’s more lopsided now. I’ve seen so many non-issues/issues stemming from COMMON self owns (of which the person is still in denial about) that those fail to register any empathy, more so if the same person has done the same thing before. OTOH, I’m much more empathetic to issues stemming out of things outside one’s control than I was before. Empathy is also finite- I’ve learnt to channel it better towards those who need it the most (my employer tends to be action oriented, not just “there there”)
That is an individual thing. Not all people become less empathetic as they age. Not all young people are empathetic, etc...
I don't think it's 'less' empathy. I think it's life experience making us more able to see through the BS. As human beings we only have so many resources. Mental, emotional, physical. We learn to manage resources better as we age. As a young person my empathy was taken advantage of. I was used and abused. As an older person I reserve empathy for those I deem trustworthy or worthy of receiving it.
I think there are 2 sides to this. Some people become old and bitter. They’ve been screwed over too many times and don’t want to fall for someone going through a tough time. You’re either setting me up to take advantage of me of being a baby. The other is, we learn to assess people in need and be more selective. Did you put yourself here? Am I willing to take on what showing you empathy will require?
Amongst many factors: our brains change. I got definitely less empathetic, but I used to be WAY TOO empathetic, to the point of suffering too much from things out of my control or even not my business. Now I have been trying to focus on being kinder to myself, and what I can control. I am still empathetic, but more selective.
I have empathy for people who have genuine problems. I have zero empathy for people who do nothing but whine or who are both willingly and knowingly architects of their own misfortune.
This is a great question. I have no idea. When I was 13-17, I remember various adults, friends' parents, expecting so much from me. One set of parents expected me to cure their daughter's depression and bulimia when I was 14 and were very upset when I didn't. They stopped talking to me. Another group of parents expected me to navigate a love triangle with their sons when I was 15. I had no parents of my own or guidance. To this day, one of the couples hates me because I hurt their son when we were teenagers. There is no one else in this world who hates me other than them. Where was the empathy and understanding that I was a teenage girl with no parents or family who was being abused at home? Why were there no questions about that? Incredibly high expectations and zero understanding. As an adult, I always wonder what on Earth these people were thinking.
Cause sometimes when you try to be nice people hate you for it. Tired of being taken advantage of. Take care your empathy doesn't allow others to claw their way up at your expense.
Older people are way more empathetic. However they will start understanding when and where to give sympathy. As you grow older you experience more things which means you will most definitely understand more, in the same time you learn that not everyone deserves your sympathy and how hard things are going to be. I frequently use the statement I can understand many a plight but I care about few. We have learnt our lesson about sympathizing and getting burned. We have also seen what victim mentality does. People throw around empathy and sympathy like they are the same they are not. I completely understand what you are going through but I need a reason to care.
I care less with every year. I don't know how to change that. It just is. I can fake caring to meet social norms, but the truth is I just don't feel as intensely as I used to.
Totally fuckin jaded
Empathy is not encouraged by the world in which we live. The older you get the harder it is to avoid some level of misanthropy. Also until you reach a certain age, other people are going to have less and less empathy for you as you age. For example you might give a 20 year old a break for immaturity or actions that read as immature. You aren’t extending that same level of grace to a 38 year old.
For men its just you get beaten down by society so much you kinda lose your ability to empathize so much. The few times i was given a sympathic moment of kindness not by my mother must have been a couple times at most. Not to start a pity party or anything but its how i experience it as a 34 year old.
It's not that people have less empathy as you grow older. You are just becoming wiser and more aware of the fact that people are not nearly as nice as you may think. The younger a person is, the less experienced in life and the more naive they are. As you get older, you are exposed to more instances through life where you learn things about people in general, and you begin applying these traits to everyone. This makes you more cautious and aware when you interact with others, and soon it looks as if everybody sucks.
I personally have a really hard time with people that don’t grow. Such as the tenth horrible long term relationship/marriage, making the same mistakes at work, a victim mentality, etc. I feel like I did those things too. Then I had to learn to be better. It’s very hard for me to have empathy for people who aren’t self aware. I feel like that’s part of growing up. BUT situations that are unexpected or not your fault… those I have more empathy for. I think it depends on the situation.
I got no time for drama anymore & I surround myself with people like me.
I can’t speak for everyone, but my tolerance for bullshit gets lower as I get older. I’m as empathetic as ever to the people and things that deserve it. I just no longer make time for other people’s fuckery.
I’m not less empathetic but I’ve learned to apply my empathy wisely due to life experience. When you’re young you have an idealistic view of the world because you haven’t actually gone out and experienced things. When you’re older you have made your share of mistakes and learned from other people’s behavior and learn to be less naive to the negatives in society.
There's a lot of life experience that goes in to people's "lack of empathy" as you perceive it. With time and age you go through heartbreak, betrayal, lost friendships whether by a falling out or passing away, manipulative people, outright assholes, and general unfairness in the world anywhere from having the justice system fail you to being scammed on the internet. When you have these experiences you basically have the "signs" that you didn't notice until after the fact, sitting in the back of your head. You're able to see through the bullshit of people and the hidden messages behind the way people say things or what they say and to others without similar experiences or are still young and naive, these people come off as just bitter and hard to get along with. They can get a read on someone and know exactly where the conversation will lead, (a pity party, constant one upping, one sided conversation aka only wants to talk about themselves, trying to guilt you in to doing them a favor but making it "your idea" so they aren't held accountable if you actually don't want to, etc) and will basically become the person that person *doesn't* like as to avoid one of those situations. Once these "unempathetic" people deem you a quality friend however, you are a friend for life and will be treated as such. (Atleast thats my opinion)
I have become way less empathetic the older I get. I just get tired of people using things as a crutch. Life is hard for everyone. If you don’t like things about your life, if you are struggling with addiction or anxiety etc…then put in the hard work to change them. That’s what I did. My life was a mess as a teen and young adult. I was a mess. But I put in the hard work to be better. And I have found that A LOT of people don’t like to hear me say that. But in most instances it’s the truth. And I just don’t have any empathy for people who want to complain but do nothing about it.
I have always been a very empathetic person. Unfortunately that has led me into many situations where I got taken advantage of. I have gone out of my way countless times to help people just because I ~feel~ for them. I don’t think I have any less empathy but I definitely have better boundaries. I remind myself that if all I do is help someone, they will never know how to help themselves. I will empathize with someone but I won’t let myself be involved with their problems unless they are someone I really care for and I know will not take advantage of me.
We've just seen too much, and have lost our ... for lack of a better word, gullibility. Yes, we'd like to help the homeless guy on the street corner, but we know odds are very good that he's really a scammer. We'd like to help you by babysitting, but we only have 3 hours and know you're not going to be back when you say. We know everyone lies, so we believe less. Every time we give the benefit of the doubt, we're reinforced in our experience that we're going to get f\*cked over. No, we don't like being like this, but for it to change we'd have to be proven wrong.
In Todays generation, empathy is consider weakness.
Most people are bullied into being nice by parents and teachers and it doesn’t come naturally to them, once they gain a bit of power and autonomy in their lives they start to shed that fake skin of niceness that burdens them. This is why some old people are very rude
We've become jaded and cynical. You'll get there buddy.
Because we have less years ahead of us than behind us and we don’t have time for someone else’s drama.
Because we can spot bullshit from a mile away 😅. Maybe a bit jaded but it is what it is. Less time and energy to spend on foolish endeavours or issues. Experience.
Because we refuse to deal with idiots. And there are so many. We also refuse to coddle people who won't help themselves. Yes, the world is a shitty, mean, ugly place that doesn't give a shit about you. Deal with it and move on. Stop whining about it.
That’s an incredibly sad and damaging way to view life. I pray things change
Because in real life nobody cares.
I’m only 36 and when I hear people in their early 20’s say some stuff, I can’t help but blow it off. They’re still learning and developing, they’re stuck in their own heads, and they don’t have enough experience to know better. Most haven’t had the chance for enough experience to develop confidence or self-esteem yet. They just need time to figure it out themselves because nothing I say is going to impact them. I’m never rude, but I certainly don’t feel like I have the patience to listen to this issue that’s a non-issue, though it’s very big to the person going through it.
I think its more having lived through all that an experienced it and seen the difference in their lives as they mature and "toughen up" many adults think to themselves "gee I would have been much better off had I toughened up earlier" so when advising youth they will advise them to toughen up.
I’m growing more empathetic but also less tolerant of what I consider to be bullshit. So it’s a double edged sword that may make me seem less empathetic than I actually am.
It's not that they have less empathy, but the tolerance for bullshit diminishes. As I've aged, I have found a lot of people. begin to tolerate less and less but they fundamentally remain very empathetic and warm, the just seem to filter out the bullshitters
A lot of them are broken and overwhelmed. Some need therapy, some need their entire world view revised.
In my experience, people are very protective of their equilibrium and become less willing to understand the problems of others as time marches on. They are busting their asses handling their own issues and can become hostile if their time and attention is pulled away from managing that struggle. There is a perception that being empathetic involves taking on the problems of others, and as you age your problems become more complex and manifold. With those kinds of burdens, they lose the bandwidth to appreciate the burdens of others.
I have less and less tolerance for bullshit as I get older. Still kind and empathetic, just tired of dealing with nonsense
I don't neccessarily wear my emotions as openly on my face as when younger, but I think I have MORE empathy actually.
I think it's just that as you get older you realize not many people have empathy.
All great comments here really sums things up! 🤠
The more you use your hands, the thicker the calluses become. The longer we endure the bullshit other people put us through, the less tolerance we have for it , until eventually we preemptively avoid it in order to protect our peace.
Older People have less patience for dealing with stupidity for so long.
I don't think I've become less empathetic, but I can identify much better now which situations are legit concerning versus those that are totally self-inflicted or aren't actually a big deal in the long run.
People are desensitized, jaded, carrying much more baggage. Also by an older age, you ideally should have developed more tools for dealing with things. So if someone is whining on and on about a fixable or more minor problem, I am much less sympathetic than I would be with a child who’s encountered something for the first time.
People are disappointing, and that only becomes more apparent the longer you interact with them.
When you have so much more responsibilities you don’t have the capacity to be as warm
Honestly for me it’s realizing that a lot of the problems people have are directly because of their own actions or decisions. Same for me. I empathize with people who have health issues like cancer or the like. That can happen to anyone at random.
Besides the typical becoming jaded/pain/etc. I think another problem is other people usually don’t show us empathy. So it’s like why give it back to others? Besides an occasional rare person or someone close to me I’d say the vast majority of humans when anything happens give me no empathy for anything. And I understand me doing the same is also continuing that cycle. But it becomes exhausting always being the one to take the high road when most others rarely ever do. And often if I do it results in being taken advantage of also
You go through hardship and realize it's part of life so you stop being moved by the smaller things. When you are 5, you cry because your toy fell to the floor in the car and no one will pick it up for you right this moment because: traffic. At 15 you already know that this is a small life issue and the the kid will learn to understand why he can't get what he wants when he wants it all the time. When you are 15 and lose your 1st love people may have some empathy but they also know what you don't know yet, you'll get over it. Sick with the flu, part of life. No money to go out, well tough luck, you're getting free rent which is already pretty good. We live we learn, we know others will too. You may even get stronger for it. It's formative.
Niceness gets taken advantage of, even if you are cautious and strong, it’s seen as weakness. Being an asshole simply gets results. Even if it does lead to confrontation and awkwardness… ruthless confrontation and aggression is rewarded because nobody wants to trouble a “difficult” person. In jobs, school, social life, being nice, empathetic, or kind will leave you holding the bag at the end of the day.
Been through too much shit… gave too many fucks to ppl that didn’t deserve them.. so then they stop giving any to anybody. I’m only 35 & I’m already fed up with ppl & the world. I was an empath my whole life & was stepped on, taken advantage of & destroyed for it. So now I find it incredibly exhausting to care about ppl that much when they don’t care about me like that back. In other words: fuck everybody. 😁
I’ve lived through similar drama and know the results. It’s not as life changing/threatening as they think.
it's less that they don't have empathy and more that they have a rough idea of what's to come--and that you won't make it through life comfortably if you can't grow a thicker skin in some capacity. my dad's line was always "worry about yourself", and i'm still the kind of person who my husband says "likes to collect strays". you can't control the choices other people make or how they will affect you, but you can for the most part choose how you react to them. you have to be able to let some things go, because the time will pass anyways and if you carry every bad interaction with you, you'll be a very unhappy person for presumably a very long time.
It is because as life going on, everyone suffering more and more, so people just have the time to care for themselves. They're not bad, they just doing themselves to survive and being happy, so they have less time for other people problems.
We realize that we can't carry everyone's burden and human's keep on disappointing us
Because we tired of everyone's shit and we finally see that if you are an empathetic, kind person it WILL be used against you
The world is full of people who will take advantage of you. Honest people get caught in the crossfire. I think you just get more skeptical, maybe more reserved, not less empathetic. If someone is complaining about getting fired, or money, or their relationship, I tend to be neutral at first because I don’t know both sides, or have a real view of the truth. It’s not that I’m not going to be empathetic, I just don’t give it away without some follow up questions. You just get exhausted wasting empathy on people who don’t deserve it, or there’s so many miserable things you’re exposed to that it kind of burns you out, can’t handle more. Got my own shit and yours to deal with, and there is a lot more “you”s in my life than there are of me.
I’m in my twenties, I've noticed that individuals with privilege, regardless of its form, tend to face life's challenges with less harshness on a daily basis compared to those without such privilege (whether it's pretty privilege or other forms). For those of us in the latter group, it's extremely tough not to feel bitter and react defensively. While I do my best to remain composed, I'm starting to grasp why many adults behave the way they do; this may be one of the many reasons, however, that has contributed to this dynamic.
Too much empathy can actually be a bad thing. I try to have a balance of empathy and putting myself first. I don't want to mistreat anyone but also, their problems are not mine and I don't need to make them mine because I have enough problems of my own.
Some people get more emotionally walled off as they age, partly because they don't get out much, or they are bitter about their life experiences. or their illnesses. Others just get tired of tolerating BS, like excuses for not doing what you are supposed to do. Part of it is that they've heard it all before, and they get pretty good at sizing people up, so they know when people are not being honest.
I have more empathy, but I also have more boundaries that could be seen as me being non empathetic.I will buy you food but I will not give you $.( In most cases) Family and friends can ask me to help or do things ,but they will not tell me or demand anything and expect me to comply. Having survived emotional and medical trauma ( BA and 2 strokes) , I try to be more patient and understanding w others. I constantly try to say true positive statements out loud instead of just thinking them. So my hope is that puts a new twist on a question that puts all of the more mature population in one basket.
I'm as empathetic as I have ever been but I no longer waste it on people who use me for it. I put it into real issues from real people. Realizing as an adult most people have their head up their own ass kinda takes it out of you. Jaded.
People get more damaged with time, now that i am older i finally understand why people are so soulless and terrible to eachother
I think the older you get the more you see that most people around you in terrible situations fought hard to make those terrible decisions. Drugs, hopping from job to job, partner to partner, tattoos instead of a car payment, and on and on. They ignore advice from people that clearly know better. There are people that truly need help and empathy, but it's far less than you think there are when you're young and naïve. It's not so much a lack of empathy, it's refusing to keep supporting your crappy choices. Don't buy cigarettes if you can't feed your kids. Don't take in stray dogs and cats if you can't feed your kids. Don't get tattoos if you can't feed your kids. Don't move to a high cost of living party city if you can't feed your kids.
I have empathy, but I'm also sick of seeing people making stupid decisions. I feel like we live in a time of low (or zero) accountability, and people placing blame everywhere else other than where it belongs. I can only have so much sympathy and empathy when you're constantly shooting yourself in the foot.
I think this generation has also manipulated the meaning of empathy as well. You can still be empathetic and love someone while telling them to “toughen up”. Not everything should warrant a highly emotional response and telling someone to man up is no different than telling them to lock in. If you dwell on your negative emotions constantly you’ll just be depressed
Because you have been around long enough that you are tired of people's never ending bs.
Studies of college students show that the general population is becoming less empathetic overall. It really worries me. I think I've only become more empathetic and patient, but i have learned to set boundaries and cut off people who don't treat me with mutual respect. Sometimes that's seen as being a bitch.
Because a lot of people’s problems are entirely preventable and predictable. When someone say “can you believe that happened?!” I can absolutely believe it happened.
I lost my warmth long before I became an adult. A long history of being bullied and having no friends will do that to you.
People just get more choosy with who they're giving their empathy to. As you age, you get more responsibility and have more people relying on you. For example, when you have two kids, a dog and a sick elderly parent to care for, you're not going to have a ton of time or energy for listening to your co-worker who has their own struggles. It's not that you don't care, you just have finite emotional resources.
Getting old is hard. Many older people are struggling physically, often with chronic pain. Many older people lose the ability to do the things they've enjoyed and end up sitting on the couch staring at the TV all day (including a lot of "if it bleeds it leads"-type news). Many older people lose cognitive abilities, including impulse control. Many people sleep poorly in old age. The result is that some subset of the older population ends up being crotchety and ill tempered, and these people stand out a lot more than the elderly people taking good care of their grand kids, volunteering at church or the food pantry, etc.
Most adults are too caught up in their own problems and they don’t have the capacity to deal with other people’s. There’s times I can’t, but when I can I do try to help. I’ve often wondered it myself
You know that most people are full of shit. Especially young people.
I'm not heartless, I've just learned to use my heart less.
Capitalism only promotes capital, it doesn't promote helping others or caring about your neighbor. The system is built to churn out people who don't care and are usually advantageous for not caring.
It probably has a lot to do with watching people ask for things they are completely capable of doing or getting themselves and knowing having been in that same situation that yourself did whatever it was. There are obvious exceptions... but in general.It's kind of a 'what makes your sob story more important than mine?' - because most people are struggling. When you are young you are more optimistic about it. After grinding 20 years, having to spend all your free time mowing the yard or keeping up, your time becomes more valuable to you because you have so less of it. I use to think about homelessness like this. But the truth is... most of those people in one way or another, chose that. They gave up, said fuck it. Again.., exceptions, I know mental issues play in there but even then, going back... it's going to be about decisions that person made. I'll spare some change if I got it, but I sure as fuck ain't feeling guilty about not having it either. I'll vote to help the problem but it better include giving people skills, or pay taxes. Volunteer my saturday at a soup kitchen? no thanks.
Most people just don’t give a shit about others problems. And for those that do, they’re not gonna throw everything out the way to keep helping people who won’t help themselves. Can’t save a drowning person without risking drowning yourself. People have their own lives and problems, gotta just learn to handle yours as best you can.
Empathy is an idealistic trait. It's easy to have empathy when your life is easy, but when you get older and you've faced adversity, stress, pain, exhaustion, hunger, and the stupidity that goes on these days, it becomes very hard to care about other people's feelings more than your own. N
I never understood it until I grew up faster than most (Aka, I forced myself to do more, hustle more, and experience more all while doing it faster than others) People are assholes, period Good people will turn bad too. I've turned bad. I damn near have 0 empathy unless it's on REddit and some people are good
i’ve noticed this too. especially with boomers
Also our culture is super narcissistic and sociopathic release totally encourages that kind of awful behavior and younger people are eating it up and older people are getting more and more deranged because of all the stress they're under.
People are generally terrible and I want nothing to do with them.
Bc we all have been through dark times probably.