Empathy, My New Favorite Word
" Empathy is patiently and sincerely seeing the world through the other person's eyes. It is not learned in school; it is cultivated over a lifetime."
- Anonymous
Empathy. My new favorite word. Empathy is something that I am not sure everyone can understand or express. Including myself. More importantly, I don’t think people realize that the time for empathy is now. The definition of empathy is, “The ability to understand and share the feelings of one another.” This concept sounds so simple yet, collectively, we miserably fail at expressing empathy. In one of my classes, I had to watch a video involving people who were bashing on a lady that was suing McDonald’s for claiming that the coffee was too hot. Interviewers walked around the street asking pedestrians what they knew about this case and it was not surprising that they all had these horrible assumptions about the burn victim. They said things like, “She just wants the money!” or “It was her fault, she should know coffee is hot!” These people completely neglected to take the time to actually fully understand what the reality of the situation was. The interviewer then showed all of these people the horrific burns that this woman was covered in. So bad, that this woman needed skin graphs and a couple other surgeries. Once the pedestrians saw the true damage from that scorching hot coffee they immediately changed their perception and started to empathize. The daughter of the burn victim was interviewed and expressed how disheartened she was that her mother was severely injured but, people still had these horrible misconceptions. I bet no one that was interviewed took the time to understand the situation. I bet no one that was interviewed took the time to put themselves in the position of the woman who has severely burned. That my friends, is a perfect example of us failing to understand one another, forming judgements and neglecting this idea of empathy. It sounds so juvenile, the ability to understand someone’s feelings but, we consistently neglect this simplistic idea until we are proven otherwise. For whatever reason, we are usually only empathetic once we have direct evidence to show empathy. Why can’t we be mindful of empathy before we judge and assume? Who knows. When I picture unconditional love, I picture someone like my mother, my sister, my father or my best friends approaching me during my lowest of times and simply sitting there to listen to me, validate me and truly express to me that I am not alone. It is moments such as those that require all the empathy in the world. In those moments we feel understood in which is something we all strive to feel. Empathy, it’s something we want, crave and need to project more and more in our daily lives not just to people through the hard times or to the people we love but, also through the easier times and with everyone. We need to unconditionally care for others and the best way to do so is to share, preach and show empathy.
I catch myself immediately forming a judgement or stereotype of someone when I first meet them or just simply see a stranger walking on the street. I immediately react and form these judgements. In the beginning of the semester in a classroom full of new faces I did this with a man in his late thirties that sat a few chairs away from me. I remember telling the people sitting next to me that this man seemed very different and quite strange. I judged him and probably never would have tried to engage in conversation with him considering I created this immediate judgement. This class just so happened to be public speaking. The next week each student had to give short speeches to introduce themselves. This man that I deemed to be very odd and weird went up in front of the class and told us about the death of his wife, mother and uncle in a car wreck a few years back. In that moment, I understood why this man acted different or “weird.” Once I understood who he was I felt awful for making my immediate judgement and I then began to feel for this man who has gone through more pain in his life than I could ever imagine. I empathized once I understood him and threw away all of my false judgements and perceptions. It clicked in this moment that I only show empathy when someone proves to me that I should be empathetic when in reality, I knew that I needed to do just the opposite. I need to be entirely empathetic and be mindful of the fact that everyone has a story from the get go and only reject empathy if I am proven otherwise. I need to take everyone for who they are and not judge them until I cultivate understanding. The change was right then in that moment. I did not want to form judgements before I understood a situation because we truly cannot do so until we at least try to understand what makes someone who they are. In this particular situation, I judged someone who I did not know, leading me to feel horrible about my preconceived notions about a man who has been to hell and back. Ever since then, I knew I needed to be aware of my immediate judgements and invite more compassion into my life.
I also realize how much I sometimes fail to empathize with my friends, family and other people that I genuinely do know. When a friend or a family member tells me something that I do not necessarily agree with, I am infamous for saying things like, “Listen to me!,” “Don’t feel like that!” or I simply just express judgement. I miserably fail to take a step back, put myself in their position and then respond. “You cannot always rely on others for advice because they are going to come from a place that is a representation of their own life experiences, not yours.” This quote expresses exactly what I do far too often. I give people an immediate response based on what I think the best decision would be but, not necessarily thinking about their needs and them as a person before I do so. We speak from a place that is true to our own self but we do not take the time to listen, understand and gain the perception of the other person. My mom always says, “Before you respond or react you need to approach them with compassion and ask them if there is an underlying reason for their actions. That way, you can actually understand what is going on and who they are before you act.” My mom’s words completely cultivate the true definition of empathy and have helped me to approach situations in a new way.
Empathy opens up our eyes to new people, minds and acceptance. I recently read a short entry from a book where the author discusses how thankful they are to be surrounded by people who are so different from themselves. This author went into depth describing the amount of intelligence and new perspectives that they have gained through inviting different minds into their lives and being open to understanding and accepting who these people are as individuals. Essentially, this author was expressing his gratitude toward welcoming empathy into his life. Which made me understand that empathy invites intelligence, awareness and new ideas. Without empathy we all would basically be biased toward people whom are different from ourselves in which would create no sense of community what so ever. Unconditional love from even the people we are closest with can be difficult because we so often do not genuinely try to understand each other, let alone we also neglect to understand strangers. The story behind our motives, actions and words is something we never really try to understand. We just immediately make an assumption before trying to genuinely grasp why certain individuals are who they are or do what they do. I have said it once but I will say it again, it is amazing to be loved but it is absolutely profound to be understood. We do not have to agree with one another in order to be empathetic we just have to listen, try to understand and validate that the feelings we all feel as individuals are valid and welcomed. This segment is not directly about your typical idea of unconditional love. This is more of a post about unconditional compassion for one another regardless of who they are. We are the way we are because we are meant to be unique individuals. We are not meant to agree and think alike, that is the beauty of the word empathy. Unconditional love is important but, today I think we need to implement unconditional compassion, not just to loved ones but to everyone because no one likes to feel misunderstood. The ability to genuinely take on and implement empathy into our daily life allows for a refreshing transcendent sense of compassion. Sometimes, people are not seeking immediate advice, sometimes we are simply looking for someone to understand us and express empathy because being understood captivates love and acceptance in the deepest of ways. Empathy should be unconditional.
