empathy

The word 'empathy' came up a lot today. Almost every hour actually. By different people. So I thought it worth while to explore.
Webster would define it as "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another..."
One of the keynote speakers in a class I was in today described it as the ability to put yourself in another persons shoes and feel what they feel. Apparently a few years back at a commencement speech, when asked what his wish was for every college graduate, Obama stated, 'that they all have empathy'.
We are the only creatures on this planet that have the capacity for this emotion. And through conversation and reading and experiencing and being - we can feel it. It is what draws us all closer together. And what allows us to understand that we are, essentially, one.