I do agree that you do need to learn to be a bit more heartless. I am not going to say that you should abandon empathy altogether, but unless you are willing to blunt that sense a bit, you are going to do something even more selfish than than most selfish people do. Is suicide a kind option? Usually not. People go through that with broken hearts and emptied dreams, wounds that might never heal right. Not only that, but if you are a Christian, then you need to remember that the point of Christ's action was to save you, not condemn you. If you push this route, then you would be spitting into his face as well.
I am sorry if that sounds cold, but sometimes some level of coldness helps. Your emotions will probably never be "right", but at the very least you do the world a lot of good if you earnestly strive to gain some level of stability. This is not to say that you shouldn't stop striving to change the world, but you need to get a grip on the world to make your change. To be honest, I think you can change your emotions, it just is a very difficult thing and rather hard to focus upon. You basically have to train yourself to be less sensitive.
TheMidnightJudge wrote:
In an insensitive world, this is actually a beautiful thing. Don't lose it.
He should lose part of it, there are enough tears in the world to drown a giraffe in, to care is not the issue, the issue is that to suffer so greatly is a terrible burden beyond what most people can carry, and beyond what he thinks he can carry. If the choice is between no tears and giving tears to others, then the altruistic choice is no tears.
philosopherboi wrote:
I wanted you to hurt so you would know how I felt about what you said.
That might be a good alienating emotion for you if you are relatively passionate in caring. If you can instead kill a bit of that with anger, it could be useful. Yes, I know, performing emotional surgery on yourself is a bit of a difficult thing, but just use reinforcement techniques. When you allow yourself to feel less empathetic(or more at peace or more trusting of God or whatever relevant substitute feeling you can think of), reward yourself in some manner. You have a bundle of emotions, and not all of them are empathy, use your emotions to weaken your emotions. Just be careful, if you do too much, then it can lead to problems, your emotional health is probably going to be a point of weakness for you period.