I'm curious about what other people here think about all this.

It seems like a common opinion out there that less empathy makes a person "bad", but I'm starting to notice some people i perceive as having less empathy than me are more able and willing to take careers related to helping others, and being a little less disconnected from others makes them survive the daily contact with suffering of many kinds (while I tend to get overwhelmed quite often). I tend to mistrust people who don't seem to connect well with others, since I know many who can act very kind while being horrible human beings, but I recently got to know a person who feels truly kind and sensitive, but have so much trouble connecting to others. They're a doctor, so I wonder if kind people always have high levels of empathy but are sometimes able to turn it off, unlike myself, or if empathy and a good heart dont necessarily go hand in hand.

In the comments of another post here I ended up at an interesting question with another user, because sometimes I wonder if my impulse to take care of living beings to make them feel better is because I relate to them and selflessly want them to feel better, or if I feel the need to make them feel better so I can stop feeling the distress they are feeling.