It’s Christmas Eve today, so I’ll keep this brief. I wanted to share a bold idea from The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World by Jamil Zaki, a psychology professor and director of the Neuroscience Lab at Stanford University: our capacity for empathy–sharing, caring about, and thinking about others’ feelings–is not fixed; we can cultivate it. This is a particularly fitting message in a time when it feels like we’re constantly bombarded with bad news and experiences of negativity, conflict, and division throughout the world.
While we celebrate the holidays with various traditions, it’s an opportunity to prioritize kindness. By doing this, we’re not just being nicer to others; it’s for our own well-being. As Zaki points out:
Decades of evidence demonstrate that individuals who empathize with others also help themselves: attracting friends more easily, experiencing greater happiness, and suffering less depression than their less empathic peers.
Conversely, self-centeredness often leads to loneliness and depression.
Zaki’s research highlights our ability to enhance our empathy through psychological tuning. Our emotions are built on thoughts, so by shifting our focus and thinking differently, we can choose to feel differently and cultivate more empathetic feelings:
Empathy is linked to kindness and prosociality, the behaviors that benefit others and society as a whole.
We possess the ability to control and regulate our emotions.
Contact with outsiders, or people we see as different from us, can bolster our empathy during conflict.
This holiday season, whether you’re spending time with relatives, traveling, or enjoying a quiet staycation, look for small ways to be kind to others. Make an effort to connect with people that you might not normally interact with. These small steps can grow your capacity for empathy, compassion, and kindness.
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