The price of empathy: who will care for others when everyone breaks

Reflecting on human grief, the American psychotherapist Frances Weller recalls an old northern tradition. A person struck by a crushing loss was released from everyday life: they sat by the ashes of the ancestral hearth and for many months were relieved of all duties to the community. Everyone else passed them with respect, brought food and asked for nothing.

But this custom contains a detail we are happy to forget today: it was not the whole village that sat by the ashes, only the one who was grieving. They could go through their grief undisturbed only because the others kept working the land, hunting and tending the fire. Space for vulnerability does not appear by itself — it is a gift paid for by the efforts of those who keep standing watch over daily life.

The illusion of endless understanding

We have learned to speak openly about mental health — an undoubted step forward that modern society had long been waiting for. We have stopped glorifying senseless self-sacrifice and accepted that deep grief and life crises require time, peace and the unconditional support of those around us. However, having mastered the language of therapists’ offices, we have begun turning this healing space into a convenient alibi for everyday unreliability.

The psychologist Nick Haslam of the University of Melbourne has described in his research how the original meaning of specialist terms gradually erodes and inflates. The words “trauma”, “harm” and “safety” were once precise, and now we use them for ordinary discomfort, tiredness or an unwillingness to deal with unpleasant conflicts. When every unpleasantness is made into a threat to mental health, the basic premise of adult coexistence disappears from relationships — personal responsibility.

Therapy-speak as a shield

Phrases about “having no capacity”, “setting clear boundaries” and the need to “put myself first” have become a universal way of walking away from commitments without a twinge of conscience. Instead of dialogue and the search for compromise, “boundaries” have turned into a one-sided diktat that allows no discussion of the consequences for others. Specialists call this the misuse of therapeutic terminology: psychological concepts should serve self-knowledge, not the manipulation of others and an escape from the consequences of one’s own behaviour.

Genuine care for the fragility of others does not exist in a vacuum. For someone to breathe out calmly and gather strength, someone else inevitably has to take on their load and keep the world moving. Empathy and kindness are not self-evident laws of nature but fragile privileges. They rest solely on the work of those who keep meeting their obligations despite the disfavour of fate.

Why we need adult heroism

As soon as we speak of real situations in which our safety, health or income is at stake, the urge to excuse everything endlessly quickly evaporates. Nobody wants to lie on an operating table and hear that the surgeon is “not in the right headspace” for a complex operation. Nor does anyone want to put up with an unreliable partner or colleague who covers their failures with the fashionable label of burnout. When things get hard, we instinctively look for people who are inwardly steady, predictable and able to bear the weight of their own decisions.

Maturity is not blind martyrdom but the ability not to turn your own difficulties into an instant burden for those around you. In a crisis, the adult approach requires looking for a solution, reporting the problem in time, arranging a replacement and doing everything to minimise the damage, rather than simply slamming the door with the feeling that you have a sacred right to. In an age when self-deception has become a public virtue, demand is growing for people who are sensitive to themselves but remember that their freedom ends where its weight falls on the shoulders of others.

Around Prague, based on reporting by flowee.cz