For much of my life, I've been plagued with an intense level of empathy...

For much of my life, I've been plagued with an intense level of empathy, to the point where it is detrimental to my life and happiness. For some reason, I cannot escape from the overwhelming desire for others to feel I am a kind person. Even online, I fill feel a pang of regret for insulting a person. I am not intimidated by most people. I've got a knack for arguing and a quick wit, but I find it incredibly hard to assert myself out of feeling bad for how I might make the other person feel.

Are there any authors/philosophers which explore or help remedy these feelings? I want to rid myself of this mindset while not falling into the nu-masculine """redpill""" culture. I'm not saying I wish to shed myself of empathy totally. I just want to express more of myself individually without psyching myself out about caring how it might affect somebody else's feelings.

I'll bump this
Wanna know it too

be a man. a modicum of selfishness is not only morally acceptable, but praiseworthy. it is proof of self-sufficiency, and part of being an animal. you cannot learn this lesson but by experience. you can't find it in a book. good luck OP.

I have this problem, I'm 24 and have never asked a girl out because I don't want to make a girl feel uncomfortable. Everybody I tell this thinks I'm just afraid of rejection but that has nothing to do with it.

Women despise that attitude, user. It labels you as weak. Do you want everyone around you to think you're a weak, retarded manbaby?

Hey kid, wanna buy some individualism?

What if I am a weak, retarded manbaby?

you are assuredly

While I don't think there's anything wrong with being a kind and caring man, too much is obviously too much. You'll have to do some soul searching to figure out what is it that drives you to feel like you need to be validated by others as "a kind person". If you feel regret for insulting others, why do you need to insult others? I understand that it's widely rampant on the internet to dish out insults to other people, especially on this site, but I believe in more constructive way of discourse. That doesn't mean you're not allowed to see faults in other's arguments and think on your own, instead of nodding your head and agreeing to "all thoughts being equally good just because I'm afraid of hurting anyone's feelings".

Did you have a good relationship with your father or a father-like figure while growing up?

Just like said before, it's hard to give book recommendations on this subject as I too feel that these things are something best learned by first-hand experience. Maybe look into virtue ethics, stoics (Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus), and mindfulness (to help with the racing thoughts and self-knowledge; The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa is a somewhat technical but a very nice book). If you're into pseudosciences you might want to look up "sensory processing sensitivity" or "highly sensitive personality", just to check if there's anything of value for you there.

Good luck on your journey on becoming a more balanced out, better man.

>inb4 slave morality

user, hope you know you shouldn't disregard others' feelings. Many people don't take the arguments at heart, but for the other side, the best thing you can do is to make your point politely, though not submissively, regardless of what person you're arguing with. Trust me, most of your opponents, however angry in the beginning, will calm down as you do that. They won't fight something which doesn't fight back, instead they will analyze your point of view and theirs while partially disembarassing themselves of their preconceptions. This is the ideal moment to assert yourself since you will have as little of a resistance as you can have. A discussion in general should have the central point of seeing where does any of us come from with our arguments. Yes, it's true that the thoughts of anybody stems from his feelings but the reverse is true as well. No need to clash, rather try to fusion with them.
As for what books may help, I found Carnegie's book utter dogshit but it can help you with your problem

Read The Idiot.

Read the Stoics user
they will help you out

This helped me greatly as well. You can only be so nice, OP. There comes a point where even normal people will abuse your kindness, and you don't want that to happen. Or maybe that's the only way you'll learn.

You don't have to be a total asshole and drop all morality, because only retarded faggots do that. Just take yourself into consideration as well. Value yourself.

Then there's nothing to worry about it people think that about you

Thank you for the suggestions (and the overall genuine comments from everyone else). I wasn't sure how people would react to a thread like this.

>Did you have a good relationship with your father or a father-like figure while growing up?

I did. And my father is just as bad as I am. I never really saw him assert himself when I was younger. The difference is that my father is 6'4" with a large, muscular frame, which I'm sure has given him a natural sense of respect from others without the need to assert himself verbally.

I understand this idea and completely believe in it. For some reason it is hard to transition to actually employing it in my life. I'm getting slightly better but I'm still not quite there.

just become a masochist and get yourself a dominatrix

Perhaps you should discuss this with your father then? I know it's not the easiest thing to do, to talk about manhood or "deep stuff", but I'd imagine it could be fruitful. Who knows, maybe you two will bond in a wholesome way.

Reading books is good thing to gain knowledge and new perspectives, but discussing your findings with someone who is a bit interested in the same subjects will enhance your learning. This someone doesn’t necessarily need to be your father, but someone who you know and trust, so that you don’t need to skirt around touchy subjects. I would recommend having these talks with people offline, since too often discussions on the internet devolve into meaningless shit-flinging contests. Pearls before the swine and whatnot…

We truly live in the best of times when it comes to knowledge, thanks to the internet. We have access to almost everything ever written by notable writers. Use this to the best of your abilities. We stand on the shoulders of giants, but nobody is born with the accumulated wisdom of the ancients. Every individual has to build their understanding from the ground up, and I’d imagine your introspection is a good starting point. Someone who’s not interested in learning will probably not learn, right?

Also work on your self-esteem and don’t get trapped into feeling shame. You are what you are, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work on yourself and become better every day. Hit the gym and start rolling in BJJ. Mens sana in corpore sano, brother.

I have a splitting headache and English isn’t my first language, so this text might’ve gone a bit off the rails.

Oh shit, you were me. Then I moved to Israel (srs). People here are aggressive and assertive, and it took me about a year to feel comfortable doing the same. You need to practice. You need to work on it, and make yourself uncomfortable.

the man of feeling

Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life
-Rimbaud

You should view true evil in the world and learn how to be assertive when necessary. I think listening to the Jocko Podcast is a good start, it's a podcast by a Navy SEAL who is also a literature buff and he reviews war books and Shakespeare. He talks a lot about internal issues just like the one you're talking about.

I know this feel OP. It almost led to my suicide recently.

>be me
>2015
>angry as fuck working a shit-tier dead-end job
>notice an author from my region just got published
>MFA, SJW-style twitter posts, book was pretty mediocre
>sperg out and write a mean (if true) review of their work on goodreads
>think nothing of it
>early last year
>remind myself of that review
>feel extremely bad because the book wasn't exactly a best-seller
>feel shame and self-loathing for months
>try to remember the email to the profile I created but can't remember
>finally contact the website and ask for my review to be taken down and they do it
>still thought of committing suicide because I felt I had discouraged this guy from following his dream
>felt like a piece of shit bully and for that and other reasons planned to an hero in early Jan
>still here
>still feel like a piece of shit but consciously trying to be kind to everyone I meet (not that I wasn't before) and to control my anger

It's the worst thing I've ever done to another person and it was a shitty, childish thing to do.

I think we're all the same person boys. I feel so bad after leveraging harsh criticism online. It's so easy to build up a caricature of this jackass who's full of himself, but then it suddenly dawns on you that it's a person just like you with the same anxieties and worries and sensitivities and you just feel awful.

It's called empathy, and the fact that you have it is wonderful.

True, but I can't feel good about having it if I've already inflicted pain.

It's strange that at the time I didn't even think it was mean, but I became so vulnerable toward the end of last year with planning suicide etc that this memory came back and hit me like a truck. I felt so bad that my own anger, expressed at the expense of an innocent, might negatively influence their life and lead to their path in life changing because of my stupidity. I also discovered my own strength through this (i.e. that nothing anybody says can really affect me any more) but the fact others may be vulnerable made me super aware of my own power and potential to harm.

Man, that's the only way to learn: making mistakes. It's fine. I've posted writing on here and gotten terrible, painful feedback. But I lived. And it made me better in the end. And so will that author that you criticized.

> but the fact others may be vulnerable made me super aware of my own power and potential to harm

Congrats. You're gaining a real-world perspective. This site, among others, kinda fucks you up. The whole red-pill shit is a small portion of the world. Most of us are quite sensitive at heart, and you'll do better in this world by accepting it and embracing it. Not to brag, but I do way better with girls now, just by embracing my sensitivity, among other things.

And there's no reason to kill yourself. This is a journey that most people have to go through. I'm writing about it right now: how we hurt people, not through malevolence, but through circumstance. And how that's impossible to avoid sometimes.

And you know what? When we're old and feeble and close to death, we'll smile fondly thinking about our old selves and how we stumbled clumsily through our youth. It's just part of the journey man.

>Stirner for morons
Unironically read Stirner though

>I cannot escape from the overwhelming desire for others to feel I am a kind person
This is not empathy then.
I'm a walking paradox of incredibly high crippling empathy and blunt assertiveness. I struggled between my authoritarian and egoist ways and being empathetic and calm my in my teens. I came to realize most of what was 'empathy' was simply christian morality, not my true self. Ironically the bible made me see it clearly.

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34
You can only act out of empathy and kindess from a place of power.

>This is not empathy then.

Granted, of course there is some level of ego in it, as is in all humans. I do wish to be someone who is 'liked', and typically the people I like and respect are those who I view as a honorable, kind people.

That aside, though, the empathy does not come solely out of that desire to be liked, but the two are certainly correlated. As I said, I'll still even feel these feelings through the anonymity of the internet, or in dealing with a stranger I know that I will never again meet in my life. I think because I hold rude and inconsiderate people with such detestation, being perceived as such fills me with a great deal of anxiety. But I don't know how to stop caring about how others perceive me, even those who are unworthy of my kindness.

There are some people I sincerely want to tell to go fuck off, but then I get way too caught up in how that might affect them personally and their perception of me. Even in less extreme situations, say I'm leading a group project on something, I'll remain less assertive in my feelings on the direction of the project in fear that I am not being considerate of the opinions of my group.

I don't know if this can help you, but I also think of myself as highly empathic. I hate to see people crying and it makes me cry, I am quickly overwhelmed with emotions, I want everyone to feel good. I noticed that the more I am emotional, the more empathic I am. So learning to control your emotions through medidation can actually help you control emotions coming from others.