Without related difficulties, people would only be able to express sympathy or compassion, in the sense that they would never be able to truly identify with the difficulties of others. People limit themselves to sympathizing with the similar difficulties they themselves have endured when they take the risk to pursue their own interests. This further establishes the importance of the unique relationship between personal desires and empathy in a person's life. One can only acquire the ability to empathize after failing in one's own quest. Through the poem "Empathy", Stephen Dunn highlights the importance of having one's own stock of unpleasant memories of various activities gone wrong when it comes to feeling like one truly understands one's plight.