If you find yourself, however, to be one of those people who seem to lack this trait, I urge you to look at the positive.
Someone who is in inclined to empathize, I find, is always more prone to try to guess what another person is thinking. "Oh will he/she like this?" "So and so said this, I bet they were thinking that". Over empathizing some times leads to this behavior and clouds your judgment. While you should take other people's feelings into account, you should try to act on what you know as fact and not on what you think a person is feeling or thinking.
The two dimensions are orthogonal - one is emphathy/sociopathy axis and the other one is epistemological hygiene/lack thereof axis.
One could be a sociopath and not aware of it, or one could be empathic and yet aware of limitations of their knowledge. The latter would recognize situations where more emotional participation could be required and probe to find out if that's indeed that case before pouring out emotions. The former would think little before "stepping on someone toes" and be completely unaware of his lack of tact despite the facial expression of the victim.
If you find yourself, however, to be one of those people who seem to lack this trait, I urge you to look at the positive.
Someone who is in inclined to empathize, I find, is always more prone to try to guess what another person is thinking. "Oh will he/she like this?" "So and so said this, I bet they were thinking that". Over empathizing some times leads to this behavior and clouds your judgment. While you should take other people's feelings into account, you should try to act on what you know as fact and not on what you think a person is feeling or thinking.