Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations, believed that “empathy is an intellectual activity that takes into account circumstances, motives, luck, social status, and human character of the person.” The moment we blame another person’s actions, we examine the appropriateness of those actions. Adequacy is a state of neither excess nor understatement. If everyone else thinks a person is bad but I advocate for that person by saying, “I can understand,” then I approve of their actions. This situation is called “mutual sympathy.” In our lives, we can be egocentric in some cases and relation-centric in others. The more mutual sympathy exists, the more relationship-oriented our thinking becomes. Both too much and too little can lead to tiredness or dissatisfaction. Pursuing happiness means finding this adequacy. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
In his book Rhetoric, Aristotle identifies three conditions for the persuasion of people: ethos, pathos, and logos. Simply put, ethos is the inherent character of the persuader. Pathos is the emotional state of the persuadee, and logos is the logic of the persuader. The order of importance is ethos, pathos, and logos. If you want to be an influencer, define your identity, nurture yourself, and listen to your reputation, which is 60% and the psychological state of the listener is 30%. Therefore, who and what you are is the most important thing, and the timing synchronized with the psychological state of the persuadee is the second. However, the inferior people are more obsessed with logic and are more convinced. They define people and judge the world based on whether someone is right or wrong. Then they will continue to live a life of 10% inferiors. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”