Day 12 - Step into the right shoes, choose empathy today

"Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place."

Daniel H. Pink

Some unempathetic situations that I can recollect : Jokes on twitter and other social medias regarding earthquakes in the wake of recent Nepal earthquake, when the reporters wildly rummage the calamity affected areas and question the afflicted victims about how if feels when they have lost their relatives,  doctors unwilling to check critical patients before an accident case is registered with police, celebrities supporting their celebrity friends knowing well that their friend was responsible for crime and more. From our daily interactions with friends or relatives to global conflicts, lack of empathy is becoming more evident. Probably one of the reasons for terrorism and religious conflict is due to lack of empathy. Somebody truly said; You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't determine right from wrong, then you lack empathy, not religion.

I would like to cite an incident from my days of MBA studies dating back to 2007. It was vacation time and we friends were on our way home by train from Hyderabad to Vadodara. During one of the stops near Mumbai, we saw a group of transgenders from our window and we became wary, thinking that they would soon be raiding our coaches demanding money from us. If we deny they would misbehave. And then it happened. One of these guys approached us for money. We, students, at the end of our semester, were heading homes and were virtually penniless. Some of us handed over a few notes and while the other searched their pockets, one of our friend just questioned him as to why do they harass the passengers and why don't they work instead. This man (yes he was a man in every sense) sat down next to him and the story that followed was unbelievable. He said he was not a transgender as we believed, but only dressed as one. He was laid off from a prestigious company where he had worked for 15 long years (reason unknown), he has two children; one in class 12th and one in engineering college. Apparently, he was the only earning member of the family and this was the only way he could make money other than begging on the streets. I don't know if he lied to us then or not, but we willingly gave whatever little change we could to this man. He blessed us profusely as he proceeded to the next compartment. 

Sympathy is when we acknowledge other person's hardships while empathy is when you understand other's feeling since you can put yourself in their shoes. Do you think what we did was out of empathy or sympathy? I leave the answer to you.

Empathy is needed in every sphere of our lives. If we have the ability to step into the shoes of another person and can understand their perspectives and feelings, it will certainly guide us in the way we think and act. Research says that empathetic doctors cure patients faster, empathetic teachers have their students perform better in tests, and empathetic CEOs and companies will be more successful since they understand both their employees and customers. 

Step into the right shoes, choose empathy today!