jerking yourself off on the internet about how you feel for people isn't empathy. it's emotional masturbation. it's the equivalent of watching a porn clip online and thinking you're a sex expert now.

empathy is when you try to understand other people's experiences and relate to them. not just feel bad about them and pat yourself on the back for being a 'good person' because you met your quota of feeling bad for other people today, unlike all those horrible other 'bad people' who don't sit around feeling bad.

the ironic is your feelings being felt does nothing to help anyone, not even yourself. it's actions that matter. I took action and improved my life and continue to do so every year of my life and refuse to let setbacks and misfortunes define me or prevent me from acheving things. Many people however, sadly, do not do that. They sit around their entire lives and complain about how hard they have it and how unfair life is and how if only someone would help them everything would get miraculously better.

Ironically this attitude isn't confined to the poor at all. Many rich people I have known are just as guilty of their self-imposed misery and poverty. The issue is their inability to be responsible for themselves.