Empathy with Boundaries
*last updated on January 10, 2026
I often use words like compassion, empathy, and even love, and I can imagine someone hearing that and drawing a quick conclusion: so you must “love everyone,” including the people who irritate you, the people you don’t trust, the people you’d rather avoid. No one has actually challenged me in exactly those terms, but the misunderstanding feels plausible enough that it’s worth addressing.
For me, the first thing to admit is simple: I’m an introvert. I function best with a lot of time alone to recharge, and I value personal space and clear boundaries. This shapes how my values show up in practice. If I were more naturally outgoing, maybe compassion would look like constant social openness—more conversation, more spontaneous closeness, more emotional availability. But my version of compassion does not manifest as wanting to be around everyone. It manifests alongside selectivity. I choose carefully who I spend time with, not because I see most people as unworthy, but because my energy is limited and my nervous system has its own needs.
That selectivity can sound harsh if I describe it bluntly. Sometimes the reason I don’t want to spend time with someone is mundane: we don’t share interests; I don’t find the interaction energizing; the conversation feels like work; the dynamic pulls me into a role I don’t want. Sometimes it is more serious: the person feels unsafe, unpredictable, or consistently unkind. Either way, I don’t think this is the same thing as contempt. It is not the same as hatred. It is not the same as wishing harm on someone or taking secret pleasure in their misfortune. It’s closer to a practical decision: this relationship costs more than I can afford, so I keep my distance.
This is where I want to be precise about what I mean when I talk about compassion. I don’t mean a constant feeling of warmth. Warmth often takes effort; it doesn’t always arrive on command. And I don’t mean pretending that harmful behavior is fine. Harm is real, and it matters. When I talk with my kids, I try to model this distinction. If we’re discussing bullying, sometimes I hear the quick explanation “some people are just mean.” I understand why that explanation appears—it gives a clear moral map. But I tend to say: it’s complicated. People’s behavior often grows out of backgrounds, pressures, temperaments, learned patterns, and pain. None of that cancels the harm or removes the need to protect someone who is being bullied. It simply refuses to reduce a person to a single final label.
I try to apply the same discipline in my private thoughts and in how I talk about people I dislike. I can say, honestly, that I don’t enjoy being around them or that I don’t trust them. But I try not to turn that into a story about what they essentially are. I try not to speak as if a difficult person is a different category of human. I try not to use the kinds of totalizing words that make cruelty feel reasonable.
One small practice helps me here. When I feel myself hardening toward someone, I imagine them as a child. Not to excuse what they do now, and not to force myself into closeness, but to remember that every adult was once a small person trying to make sense of life with whatever tools they had. When I picture someone as a child—confused, reactive, coping—it becomes harder for me to hold onto pure contempt. Some therapists and psychologists talk about “the inner child” in various ways, and I don’t need to adopt any particular theory to recognize a simple truth: there is usually a history behind the traits that now feel unbearable.
So if someone were to say, “You talk about love—do you really love everyone?” my answer would be no, not in the sense of liking everyone, trusting everyone, or wanting to be close to everyone. I don’t live that way, and I don’t aim to. But I do try to practice a compassionate and empathic mindset as a form of discipline: a commitment to speak and think in ways that stay careful even when I’m annoyed, wary, or hurt. The goal is not universal friendship. The goal is to keep boundaries without turning other people into villains, and to acknowledge harm without stripping the person of complexity.
That is the kind of “love” I can stand behind: not a performance of constant warmth, but a refusal to essentialize, a refusal to dehumanize, and an effort to remember that even the people I avoid are still people.
About this project: Start page
For me, the first thing to admit is simple: I’m an introvert. I function best with a lot of time alone to recharge, and I value personal space and clear boundaries. This shapes how my values show up in practice. If I were more naturally outgoing, maybe compassion would look like constant social openness—more conversation, more spontaneous closeness, more emotional availability. But my version of compassion does not manifest as wanting to be around everyone. It manifests alongside selectivity. I choose carefully who I spend time with, not because I see most people as unworthy, but because my energy is limited and my nervous system has its own needs.
That selectivity can sound harsh if I describe it bluntly. Sometimes the reason I don’t want to spend time with someone is mundane: we don’t share interests; I don’t find the interaction energizing; the conversation feels like work; the dynamic pulls me into a role I don’t want. Sometimes it is more serious: the person feels unsafe, unpredictable, or consistently unkind. Either way, I don’t think this is the same thing as contempt. It is not the same as hatred. It is not the same as wishing harm on someone or taking secret pleasure in their misfortune. It’s closer to a practical decision: this relationship costs more than I can afford, so I keep my distance.
This is where I want to be precise about what I mean when I talk about compassion. I don’t mean a constant feeling of warmth. Warmth often takes effort; it doesn’t always arrive on command. And I don’t mean pretending that harmful behavior is fine. Harm is real, and it matters. When I talk with my kids, I try to model this distinction. If we’re discussing bullying, sometimes I hear the quick explanation “some people are just mean.” I understand why that explanation appears—it gives a clear moral map. But I tend to say: it’s complicated. People’s behavior often grows out of backgrounds, pressures, temperaments, learned patterns, and pain. None of that cancels the harm or removes the need to protect someone who is being bullied. It simply refuses to reduce a person to a single final label.
I try to apply the same discipline in my private thoughts and in how I talk about people I dislike. I can say, honestly, that I don’t enjoy being around them or that I don’t trust them. But I try not to turn that into a story about what they essentially are. I try not to speak as if a difficult person is a different category of human. I try not to use the kinds of totalizing words that make cruelty feel reasonable.
One small practice helps me here. When I feel myself hardening toward someone, I imagine them as a child. Not to excuse what they do now, and not to force myself into closeness, but to remember that every adult was once a small person trying to make sense of life with whatever tools they had. When I picture someone as a child—confused, reactive, coping—it becomes harder for me to hold onto pure contempt. Some therapists and psychologists talk about “the inner child” in various ways, and I don’t need to adopt any particular theory to recognize a simple truth: there is usually a history behind the traits that now feel unbearable.
So if someone were to say, “You talk about love—do you really love everyone?” my answer would be no, not in the sense of liking everyone, trusting everyone, or wanting to be close to everyone. I don’t live that way, and I don’t aim to. But I do try to practice a compassionate and empathic mindset as a form of discipline: a commitment to speak and think in ways that stay careful even when I’m annoyed, wary, or hurt. The goal is not universal friendship. The goal is to keep boundaries without turning other people into villains, and to acknowledge harm without stripping the person of complexity.
That is the kind of “love” I can stand behind: not a performance of constant warmth, but a refusal to essentialize, a refusal to dehumanize, and an effort to remember that even the people I avoid are still people.
About this project: Start page
