Final answer:
Sympathy is a feeling of compassion or concern for someone who is facing hardship or distress, and it can be experienced in various situations from real-life events to fiction. It can be triggered by a sense of shared humanity and does not necessarily involve a power differential.
Step-by-step explanation:
Sympathy is an emotional response where one feels compassion or pity for the hardships that another person encounters. The question prompts for a recollection of a time when an individual felt sympathetic towards someone else. This could be a broad range of instances, from empathizing with a fictional character in a book to feeling concern for someone experiencing a tragedy.
The feeling of sympathy does not necessarily require a power difference between the individuals involved, but it is often triggered by a sense of shared humanity or a knowledge that 'that could be me'––all of which can lead to a desire to offer comfort or assistance.