The release of the ebook version of Empathy: A Lazy Person’s Guide coincides with a major astronomical event – a total solar eclipse that traverses North America today, Monday April 8, 2024. The gods are watching and wink at us humans to encourage expanding our empathic humanism!

My colleagues and friends are telling me, “Louis, you are sooo 20^th Century – no one is reading hard copy books anymore! Electronic publishing is the way to go.” Following my own guidance about empathy, I have heard you, dear reader. The electronic versions of all three books, Empathy: A Lazy Person’s Guide, Empathy Lessons, and A Critical Review of a Philosophy of Empathy – drum roll please – are now available. 

A lazy person’s guide to empathy guides you in – 

• Performing a readiness assessment for empathy. Cleaning up your messes one relationship at a time. 
• Defining empathy as a multi-dimensional process. 
• Overcoming the Big Four empathy breakdowns. 
• Applying introspection as the royal road to empathy. 
• Identifying natural empaths who don’t get enough empathy – and getting the empathy you need. 
• The one-minute empathy training. 
• Compassion fatigue: A radical proposal to overcome it. 
• Listening: Hearing what the other person is saying versus your opinion of what she is saying. 
• Distinguishing what happened versus what you made it mean. Applying empathy to sooth anger and rage. 
• Setting boundaries: Good fences (not walls!) make good neighbors: About boundaries. How and why empathy is good for one’s well-being. Empathy and humor. 
• Empathy, capitalist tool. 
• Empathy: A method of data gathering. 
• Empathy: A dial, not an “on-off” switch. 
• Assessing your empathy therapist. Experiencing a lack of empathic responsiveness? Get some empathy consulting from Dr Lou. Make the other person your empathy trainer. 
• Applying empathy in every encounter with the other person – and just being with other people without anything else added. Empathy as the new love – so what was the old love? 

Okay, I’ve read enough – I want to order the ebook from the author’s page: https://tinyurl.com/29rd53nt

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Practicing empathy includes finding your sense of balance, especially in relating to people. In a telling analogy, you cannot get a sense of balance in learning to ride a bike simply by reading the owner’s manual. Yes, strength is required, but if you get too tense, then you apply too much force in the wrong direction and you lose your balance. You have to keep a “light touch.” You cannot force an outcome. If you are one of those individuals who seem always to be trying harder when it comes to empathy, throttle back. Hit the pause button. Take a break. However, if you are not just lazy, but downright inert and numb in one’s emotions – and in that sense, e-motionless – then be advised: it is going to take something extra to expand your empathy. Zero effort is not the right amount. One has actually to practice and take some risks. Empathy is about balance: emotional balance, interpersonal balance and community balance. 

Empathy training is all about practicing balance: You have to strive in a process of trial and error and try again to find the right balance. So “lazy person’s guide” is really trying to say “laid back person’s guide.” The “laziness” is not lack of energy, but well-regulated, focused energy, applied in balanced doses. The risk is that some people – and you know who you are – will actually get stressed out trying to be lazy. Cut that out! Just let it be. 

The lazy person’s guide to empathy offers a bold idea: empathy is not an “off-off” switch, but a dial or tuner. The person going through the day on “automatic pilot” needs to “tune up” or “dial up” her or his empathy to expand relatedness and communication with other people and in the community. The natural empath – or persons experiencing compassion fatigue – may usefully “tune down” their empathy. But how does one do that? 

The short answer is, “set firm boundaries.” Good fences (fences, not walls!) make good neighbors; but there is gate in the fence over which is inscribed the welcoming word “Empathy.” 

The longer answer is: The training and guidance provided by this book – as well as the tips and techniques along the way – are precisely methods for adjusting empathy without turning it off and becoming hard-hearted or going overboard and melting down into an ineffective, emotional puddle. Empathy can break down, misfire, go off the rails in so many ways. Only after empathy breakdowns and misfirings of empathy have been worked out and ruled out – emotional contagion, conformity, projection, superficial agreement in words getting lost in translation – only then does the empathy “have legs”. Find out how to overcome the most common empathy breakdowns and break through to expanded empathy – and enriched humanity – in satisfying, fulfilling relationships in empathy.

Order from author’s page: Empathy: A Lazy Person’s Guide: https://tinyurl.com/29rd53nt

Order from author’s page: Empathy Lessons, 2nd Edition: https://tinyurl.com/29rd53nt

Read a review of the 1st edition of Empathy Lessons – note the list of the Top 30 Empathy Lessons is now (2024) expanded to the Top 40 Empathy Lessons: https://tinyurl.com/yvtwy2w6

Read a review of A Critical Review of a Philosophy of Empathy: https://tinyurl.com/49p6du8p

Order from author’s page: A Critical Review of Philosophy of Empathy: https://tinyurl.com/29rd53nt

Order from author’s page: Empathy Lessons, 2nd Edition: https://tinyurl.com/mfb4xf4f

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Above: Cover art: Empathy Lessons, 2nd Edition, illustration by Alex Zonis

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Order from author’s page: A Critical Review of a Philosophy of Empathy: https://tinyurl.com/mfb4xf4f

Above: Cover art: A Critical Review of a Philosophy of Empathy, illustration by Alex Zonis

Finally, let me say a word on behalf of hard copy books – they too live and are handy to take to the beach where they can be read without the risk of sand getting into the hardware, screen glare, and your notes in the margin are easy to access. Is this a great country or what – your choice of pixels or paper!?!

(c) Lou Agosta, PhD and the Chicago Empathy Project