Empathy!

I was just wondering what exactly this means?Just looked up on web and found this "Empathy is the 'capacity' to share and understand another's 'state of mind' or emotion" .Can we really understand anyone's state of mind?It basically means putting yourself in other persons shoes.I mean we are shocked by people's behaviour,but try and think what we would have done in the similar situation.If we come up with the same answer as the other person than our sympathy/admiration lies with that person.Else we shun that person away?Is it really the right attitude?I am always confused with these conflict of interests .It always goes without saying that we can never really truly empathaize.Its all is a myth,we might actually react as the other person in similar situation,but who knows our reaction is influenced by that other persons actions.I went to this soft skill session where we had an entire hour on this(whew..was long ago).Somehow the topic interested me,as i used to empathize with people subconsiously.(to be truthful,this was a new word in my dictionary).That day i started an experiment of empathizing with people in my day to day life.Found some interesting reaction differences/similarities.I dont mean we do this experiment in everyday life.Just that we can try and understand people by empathy.