I am sharing my own experience here. Empathy can be risky if it is not perfectly understood. When I was in 11th std. I joined the hostel for the first time, but I was only able to stay there for a short time because of my wrong believes about people around me. I again joined the hostel for my bachelor. Again, I had the same problem in my first year. I used to always keep in mind things like if someone is sleeping or reading than I should not make noise and I was always making sure that nothing goes wrong by my side. But my friends were not doing the same. I am a bit sensitive person, so I always had issues with sleeping and reading in a noisy place. But I was an introvert at that time, so I was not talking about issues with my friends. I was becoming angry because I believed that I was always thinking about others and no one cares about me. I also had one other issue, when I am with a group and friends make a joke about me, I used to become very sad.
But, in the second year, I met one friend who was the same person as me. Different was he was able to understand others also. He told me that everyone is not the same and we have to start living with them, so I started ignoring things and started living with them. I was becoming more and more open with people. I became ambivert after some time and used to enjoy with both types of people introvert and extrovert. Now I started enjoying with friends in the group who were like fully mad people and always make fun of each other. I observed one thing that in the past I had a wrong belief about people. I started to share things with people. I was becoming more honest with friends which are close to me. I started to make a two-way conversation and really listening.
What I am trying to say is that if empathy is not totally understood or misunderstood it can be risky and have wrong outcomes. Well, when I was in 11th std. I never heard about word empathy, but I was using it in the wrong way, I was only making my assumptions, not sharing with people and not asking for their opinion. So, if anyone wants to become an empathetic person or wants to use empathy in the design process he/she had to first learn a two-way conversation and then he/she must become honest.
Note: – This conclusion is totally based on my experience.
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