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Once you’ve been through some hard times yourself it’s a lot easier to be sympathetic to people.
I’m afraid of there being a limit to that. I’ve felt my empathy draining away recently, as though I am so busy dealing with my own problems that I can’t deal with anyone else’s. It scares me.
The trick is just be quick, normalize it and gloss over it. Something like “hows it going?”, “Shitty like usual, you?”
I’ve found that the bluntness of normalizing is what does it. “Well I have health problems…” feels like it’s about to turn into a therapy session.
There’s a time and place to be honest and it’s not with the retail employee in the grocery store.
At the same time though, you never know what someone else is going through and sometimes just a polite smile or wave can make someone’s week.
