#17 back to the book

Personally, I feel that empathy is the most important skill we possess in order to go from "me" to "we." Everybody has their own story, and sometimes people get discouraged when people try to help them because they have no common ground with that person. The person just attempts to make a difference in their life, but with no commonality, they're just doing what everyone else is capable of doing. But when somebody goes out of their way to learn about that person and their problems and achieves a common ground with them, I feel that much greater things can be done to change that person because they now feel that they can talk to or relate to that person straight up, rather than being "assigned" a generalized problem and having people try to help them using prior knowledge of that problem, whereas now they can relate to them and help them based on their own individual needs.