I have always seen myself as an empathetic person. I can read how people are feeling from a mile away, without them saying anything, usually pretty accurately. I’ve mostly considered it a strength. It’s how I’m able to see others’ positions, take their perspective, and see the humanity in people I otherwise despise. It’s also made me a better engineer, especially as I’ve risen through the ranks and had to rely increasingly on social standing and relationships rather than pure technical ability. It extends beyond people; all living creatures are capable of feeling pain, and what is empathy if not the ability to feel others’ pain?

There are, however, times when my empathy actively prevents me from enjoying things I normally would, and results in more suffering than I’d like to admit. A recent event illustrated that in a really powerful way.

One of the things I love to spend my free time doing is driving my Ford Mustang around the scenic, twisty country roads in the surrounding rural counties. I live right on the edge between the Philadelphia suburbs and what we Pennsylvanians affectionately term “Pennsyltucky,” or the more rural, less densely populated areas of the state. Go 30 minutes southeast of me, and you’re in the Main Line, a dense populous area in the top 1% of per-capita income for the country. Go 30 minutes northwest, and you’re in the rolling fields of Oley Township, Berks County, which has a population density less than 1/10th that of Lower Merion, one of the main townships on the Main Line. Go a little further, and you’ll find yourself in Virginville (yes, that’s the actual name of the small town). This area has a density of only a third that of Oley, so even fewer people. It’s one of the reasons why I enjoy driving there so much.

You know what there’s a lot of though? Animals. And sometimes, despite my Mustang being as loud and snarly as it is, they decide to challenge it to a game of chicken.

So it was that as I was winding my way up one of my favorite driving roads, when a squirrel decided it was going to run out in front of me. I saw it with plenty of time, slammed on my brakes, and did my best to avoid it. Unfortunately, it chose to move directly into my path, rather than take the wiser path back to the closer side of the road. Thus it met an untimely demise.

I would say that the majority of people would have a reaction that goes something like this: they would immediately feel bad for what happened, perhaps experiencing a brief burst of pain or guilt, which would quickly pass. They wouldn’t think further about what had happened, nor would it detract from the rest of their experience for the day.

That’s not how my brain works.

When I hit the squirrel, my gut clenched and my hands gripped the wheel tight enough to make my knuckles whiten. I felt an immediate, physical pain blooming in my chest and elsewhere in my body. My mind began replaying the event in slow motion, second-guessing what I’d done. Had I been going too fast? I was not, but that didn’t matter. Could I have swerved harder or in a different direction? I could not, because there was an embankment on the side of the road that I would have rammed into, and I probably still would have hit the squirrel and wrecked my car and myself in the process. Was the squirrel really dead? Should I go back and make sure it was, and if — God forbid — it wasn’t, do the unthinkable and make sure its suffering ended as quickly as possible?

This continued even as I drove miles from the spot of the incident. While it didn’t rise to the level where it distracted me unsafely, the mental and physical discomfort continued to come and go. Even as I was passing through woods beginning to show the colors of Fall splendor, the image of the squirrel rolling off the road, of the awful sound when I hit it, and the visceral understanding that it had doubtlessly suffered and could still be suffering, remained. Try as I might, I could not prevent these thoughts, sensations, or images from intruding themselves upon my experience. And knowing there was nothing I could do only added to their intensity and stickiness.

I’ve learned that the only way to deal with these kinds of experiences is to remind myself that they are transient and, even though in the moment it doesn’t feel like it, they will pass. I bring myself back to the present, to the sounds, sights, and smells around me, or to the feel of my feet on the pedals, my hands on the wheel. The feel of the road. And, eventually, it did pass, as it always does. But there’s no doubt in my mind that my experience for the rest of the day was meaningfully altered by those few seconds. Even as I was planning my route home after going for a hike, I deliberately picked a different way home. I knew if I took the same roads I would be preoccupied watching for the body of the animal whose life I — even inadvertently and through no fault or negligence — ended.

I wish I could have the good parts of my empathy — the ability to put myself in others’ shoes and see their perspectives — without the bad parts — the uncontrollable rumination, the distractions, the actual physical pain. But that isn’t how it works; I get both, and I don’t have a choice. And I wouldn’t give up the good to get rid of the bad any day.