How can one be more compassionate?

I help out the poor occasionally, by giving them money, food or clothes, but I'm pretty unaffected by a lot of other things going on around me. I manage to fake it and try to solve people's problems, but I wish there was a way by which I could feel those problems, so as to make them more personal, instead of a math puzzle

I wish I could connect more with people on an emotional level, I'm sometimes just not there emotionally in a conversation, unless it's someone I know and really care about