Focus on Self versus Focus on Others

A good friend of mine, Rachel (not real name) had a bad fall day before yesterday and went to the hospital to have a X-ray of the knee. This was not her first time. When she was at the hospital, she told me how painful it was. My reaction? I was quite calm. I remembered thinking to myself, she was in pain and I didn't want her to focus on the pain. Instead focus on the bright side. So, I told her to try to relax, she's going to be ok soon and think of me singing her a lullaby. That worked well! She changed her mental state from fear to calmness and felt easy because of the humor. We sent some text messages a few more times and through humor, I lifted her spirits and managed to change her mental state.

When we talked today, she said if anything bad happened to her, she would be more calm about herself but if it happened to other people, she would be more "kan-chiong" (local dialect for anxious) and worked up. I said I was the opposite because of what I did when something bad happened to her. I was calmer when it happened to other people, but when it happened to me, I could be the opposite - very anxious and fumble a lot.

One way I look at this is focus on self versus focus on others. I seem to orientate towards a focus on myself because I worry a lot if something of a negative nature happened to me (e.g. if I receive bad remarks, bad feedback, etc.). However I feel less empathy towards others in general if something negative happened to them.

Rachel is exactly the opposite. She has tremendous empathy - she really feels the pain of others as though it were her own. The twist to this story is she fell down the stairs because she was so distraught when she heard about a dispatch rider's death from the nurse at the hospital the day before. She only knew the person as an acquaintance but felt he was a nice person and was really sad when she heard he had died. She has a very high focus on others compared to a focus on herself.

As a result of this, I now resolve that I need to exercise greater empathy and focus more on others and reduce a focus on self.