Everybody navigates his life expedition differently. Some of us seem to churn up shit with each step we take, while others prefer to bounce around between clouds of grace, high on purpose. I've found that there is nothing that will irritate a shit-churner more than someone radiating his joy, and nothing that can bother someone drunk on life more than someone who doesn't appreciate his same gift. I don't know how other people handle this. I imagine that they learn to develop a thick skin, or coat themselves in a thick layer of something that allows negative energy to bounce directly off them so that they can either muddle through or hop along, as they see fit.

Growing up, I often found myself taking on the attitudes of those around me. When my parents were happy, I was overjoyed. When they were sad, I was inconsolable. I didn't understand then that this sponge-like ability to unquestioningly accept and take on the feelings of others labeled me as an empath, and that it was dangerous for my own mental health.   

Over time, I have grown to accept and understand my empath traits. In some ways, they are like superpowers. My empathy has sharpened my ability to sense the mood and expectations of those around me, which helps me to make others happy (something I have always thrived on!) I like to think, too, that the skill helps me to create complex characters, whose needs and desires and thoughts I can create. I love being an empath when I am with people who radiate light and joy and contentedness and purpose, because their simple presence makes me feel lifted.

But as much as it can be a blessing, being an empath can also be a burden. The ability to take on emotions in such a deep way can be difficult. More times than I can count, empathy has throw me off course of my own life without warning. Even this being thrown off course can be beautiful, however. Sometimes, I've had occasion to run into people struggling with painful crises, and to the betterment of these people, I would like to devote infinite time and energy. Of course, the people whose troubles want for a friendly ear and genuine assistance are vastly outnumbered by a different variety of negative person. These are the people who, on account of boredom, or habit, or some bizarre perception of inequality, want to spend their days picking nits about the people around them solely to stir up garbage. They create nothing besides noxious discontent as they purposely recycle the same old dramas, as they shit-talk their loved ones for a fleeting bid to gain favor. Around people like this, I try to counter poison with positivity, but it wears me out, depletes any store of happiness I may have left. By the time I finally escape, I find myself bone-tired, weighted down in the sucking grasp of some manufactured mud puddle or another, unable, anymore, to quite take off and float. I leave with a slick layer of black grime over my heart. It takes hours, at least, and sometimes even days to clean myself, and even longer to pry the nails from my feet and take tentative flight once more. Being an empath in the vicinity of those who live to churn shit is a horrible, draining experience.

The older and wiser I get, the more I find myself wondering whether we all ought to take an oath to, "First, do no harm." Think about the people around you. Even if they are not empaths, they will assuredly be affected by what you share with them. We all need each other on occasion to vent about the things that bother us, but if you find your life consisting of spilling a constant stream of bogus, manmade issues into those around you, think twice.  enrich the person to whom you're saying it, think twice.