Do you know the difference between 'sympathy' and 'empathy' ? If you Google you will find this:
"Sympathy is feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for the hardships that another person encounters, while Empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of another."
Someone wise once told me a sentence that struck a chord with me and it has remained embedded in my heart and mind since then.
" You just need to put yourself in someone else's shoes and then see how they feel and then you will understand why they are reacting or why they are behaving the way that they are behaving."
Sure, it gives me heartache sometimes, but it's better than turning a blind eye. When you feel the pain someone else is feeling, your eyes may well up, but so will it, when you feel the joy they feel and that's when it's worth it.Day in and day out, we have a lot of things that cross our minds.Some good, some bad, some unnecessary and some inevitable. Certain situations and careful observations trigger these. There are thoughts that cloud mine , and they send me into a despair of sorts that I have no control over most of the time.
You know, its all easy to lecture, but it's difficult to be kind to every person we meet. Daily I meet at least 10 people standing outside my workplace to hand over pamphlets or cards about some loans that I don't really need.I agree that few of them(I was nice to initially) were very irritating and bad mannered but not all. I used to walk past them(rather indifferently if I may add) but one day I imagined , "what if I was standing there as the 11th person?" Out in the sun, with a bunch of cards I need to distribute by sundown anyhow,I wouldn't leave my post for the fear of it being hijacked by the 12th person, I wouldn't have a pee break ( Lord save me if I need to poo poo too) , I wouldn't have much time to do anything. At the end of the day , out of all the pamphlets I would have managed to hand over to passer-by's , 10% would end up torn in a trash can, 89% would go for recycling to be used by 'Bhelpuri walas' and maybe , just maybe 1% would actually call the number mentioned.I would go to bed thinking "is that why i was born?Is that what my life would be all about ever?"
Since day, when I pass by those guys, I acknowledge them by gesturing or just saying that 'I don't require the card, thanks' unlike before when I used to ignore and pass by , as if there was no one standing and just air.
What if the waiter ,who most of the people summon with their snapping fingers impatiently for food ,is hungry himself and didn't find time to eat?
Maybe the doctor who rushed to treat your son or daughter has a sicker son or daughter at home that he can't rush to.
Or the poor lady who cleans toilet at your workplace, is about to regurgitate whatever little bites she managed to gulp down, because you can't clean your own shit after you. Why do so? Oh yeah, because in India we have 'lower class' people who are destined to do so. And you my friend are 'Uber High Class' and your shit is golden, right?
What if the daily contractor who can't miss a day at his construction job because he is not able to find any other job ,suffers from vertigo? He thanks God for passing each day without dying or from the panic of falling down.
May be the poor little guy who collects garbage from your area , and jumps right into it to find something useful, dreams of someday having a nice bath . Is that what the limit of his dreams should be?
What if the newspaper boy wants to sleep in his bed, like the rest of us get to do, for just two more hours longer than his usual 4 am, but can't afford to do so ?
Maybe the person delivering your online order of food, is breaking all traffic rules and risking his life in the process,to reach you at jet speed, even when it's raining or city is jam packed with vehicles, all because you'll pay when it's hot or in 30 mins and you consider yourself too successful to wait a bit longer for your food or to go out and eat.
What if the nurse in maternity ward , nursing new born babies all day, can't have a baby of her own? Can you feel what she feels,how she yearns to hold hers but will never be able to?
Your boss is all cranky and irritated, maybe something happened at his home, right? Or maybe his boss took out his frustration on your boss, may be the case , don't you think?
What if the salesman at your door selling items you don't need , just needs a kind word or a glass of water ? Agreed, who wants to invite a stranger home, but at least be kind in saying No. Is that too hard?
What if the customer care executive (who calls you because it's their job) you yelled at for disturbing you hasn't got the time to call their own home because they are too busy getting yelled at by half the world?
Maybe the cook of that restaurant you like received some bad news from his home and it all got reflected on his dishes(they say bad mood is bad for cooking), you gave him 2 stars for just that instance? What about the other numerous instances when he outdid himself? Did you give 5 stats for all of those?
We are too quick to criticize but too slow to appreciate. It's human nature. But it's possible to evolve into a bit kinder, bit empathetic species, don't you think? After all we were monkeys once. Look where we are now, how far we've managed to come!
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