Empathy, Emotional Intelligence - ‘show’ vs ‘have’

Past couple of decades, the discourse on personality, relationships and values has laid a lot of emphasis on empathy and emotional intelligence. While the underlying intent is goodness of heart, and the emphasis intends to condition humans to be good to each other and also to themselves, the outcomes we are marching towards are performative, rather than internalized. We are taught to ‘show’ empathy, not necessarily to ‘have’ empathy. We must ‘appear’ emotionally intelligent, not necessarily to ‘be’ emotionally intelligent. A key aspect to consider here is the vantage point, of course, i.e., the world sees what it sees about you — so “look” the part; and you know what you know about yourself — so “be” the part. The worldly material incentives are tied to performances. The internal incentives (which are?) are tied to being true to oneself. Through parallel discourses on personal branding, looks-maxing, and individualism, we are only validating performance as the means to worldly success, without offering any incentive to inculcate genuine human values. I wonder whether there’s truly a way to do the latter? And what kind of success would it offer? Why does it often take experience and maturity? What if we aren’t truly anything? What if we are all just performing — as best as we can and to the extent our abilities and impulses allow — to being whatever helps us get what we need, want, desire, crave or love?