Tag: Empathy

How to Develop Empathy

Image result for mean kids

Let me begin this post by stating the fact that I love kids. Having said that, I was wondering if anyone else has noticed that kids can be little psychos.

I have been a lifeguard for the City of Glens Falls for the last three summers.  The job essentially entails card games, eavesdropping on people’s conversations and the occasional save.  I mean, it’s not my fault. I am literally paid to watch these people play in the water. Therefore is it only natural to hear the occasional small talk.  

One day I was listening to a conversation between a mother and her son when a realization dawned on me.  As I watched the son, once again, splash his mother in the face after repeatedly told not to, she responded with an ultimatum. Either splash me again and we go home, or stop splashing me and have fun. In response, the son whipped as much white water into his mother’s face as possible.  His mom, infuriated, told him to sit on the sand and that they were going home. The son walked up to the beach and began to cry.

As he sobbed, I noticed that the intensity of his tears was directly connected to whether his mother was looking at him.  As the mother began to collect the other children, the displeased son would dramatically increase his sadness with every glance the mother gave him.  Finally, after a minute, the mother could not stand her son’s emotional state and told him he could get back in the water if he did not splash her again.  With instant joy and achievement, the son bounded into the water and was back to having the time of his life. Not ten minutes later did I witness him splash his mother again as the cycle began once more.

It was at this time that a realization hit me harder than any belly flop I have ever been paid to witness.  That disobedient son was simply playing his hand. He knew that his mother didn’t want to be splashed, and he knew she would threaten to end his fun early.  Yet none of this mattered since he also knew that he had the ultimate ace card. He knew a couple of fake tears and a hardcore frowny face could turn her decision right over.

I thought about this for quite some time until I came to the conclusion that our empathy towards others is knowledge that must be learned no different than math or any other subject you learn in high school.  

After three years of watching similar showdowns commence, I found that almost all the kids had that same ace that their parents lack.  They possess the inability to understand how their actions affect others. They know that their actions will make others sad or happy. Yet they do not feel or truly understand the effect that emotion has on the person’s well being.  The son understood that fake crying would make his mother sad. Which would then get her to go against her own statement and allow him to continue having fun. What he couldn’t comprehend was how she felt.

Another example is that these children do not realize the mental consequences of stating that one person is better than the other.  I believe this is why little kids are the bluntest tiny humans out there. They simply do not understand what will psychologically happen to these people as they hear the unrelenting truth.

Personally, I have always considered empathy to be a trait that you either have or don’t have.  Yet, since we learn it, I now consider it closer to a skill. Nobody teaches you how to feel happiness, but somewhere along the line, we must have been taught how to feel for others. If not taught directly, we may have taught ourselves through life experiences.

And like any skill, some people can learn it quicker and easier than others.  People who are labeled as psychopaths, for instance, never learn this skill. Just as some people have the inability to read, these people have the inability to feel for others.  On the other end, we have the altruists of society. People are so good at understanding others, they seem to identify with everyone around them as much as themself.

Empathy is the skill to understand how actions will mentally affect others.  I think children are little psychos simply because they have not had enough time to learn this skill yet.  Like any skill, some kids will learn it before others, or some may even go their whole life not learning it at all.  Yet most will learn at their own rate and they will understand the feelings of others more and more with every year that passes.

If empathy is a skill that can be taught, then let us teach it.  Yes, some will struggle more than others, but struggle or not we all learned fractions.  And if we learn math, then we might as well learn how to care about one another as well. I mean come on, do third graders really need to know how to find the area of a fenced-in backyard or do they need a thorough explanation that other kids feel the same as they do when their toy is taken from them.  

We should have a class designed to teach these much needed social skills to these very psycho children.  I am not saying to get rid of math, but maybe we have a class called social life. One that teaches us to be empathetic for others.  As well as teaches us how to handle breaks ups properly, or explains the ins and outs of awkward conversations. This class would simply teach us how to be mentally stable in a way that makes everyone else feel good as well.  

Yes, you can learn these skills on your own, but if I was told to learn math on my own I don’t think I would have made it to triple integrals.  I probably would have figured out addition and subtraction and then called it a day. This is how we currently handle these much needed social skills.  We learn the basics and then suffer through the rest. I say we fix that, what do you think?

The Little Things

I guess sometimes life is about the little things.  The moments when you help a friend or make a new one.  The times you talk all night because the person on the other line can’t imagine being alone.  Or when you give a friend a ride home so that they can finally crawl out of their shell and let out their demons.

These actions require both emotional stability and empathy.  In these moments you need to prioritize another human over yourself.  You need to walk into their shoes and feel around. Listen to what they say and touch what they feel.  After some time you will hear and feel clearly through their perspective. You will be a part of them, and in many ways, you will be them.

It is then when you feel the pain they feel, you must also feel the happiness they feel.  It is buried very deep within them, but nonetheless, it is there, just hiding. Their hope, their peace, and most all, their purpose, are all hiding in the back of their minds.  Hiding from the light and being absorbed by the darkness.

When uncovering this light you cannot miss a beat or break a sweat.  You cannot seem weakened or discouraged. You must present their happiness as an equal and allow this person to watch as you hold their happiness with confidence and hope.  You would show this person the light that they believed was nonexistent and offer it to them. Eventually, they will hopefully follow your steps and gratefully take it from you. For those moments, and hopefully many more, this person will be able to hold onto the happiness that they thought they lost. 

As you watch this individual have their moment of clarity, the hardest part follows.  You must take off their shoes, prioritize yourself again and resume how you once were.  Unchanged and stable. This process is difficult but not impossible. And when looking, as yourself, at the happiness your friend now holds, it makes it all worth it.  Because at that moment you see more than they do. You see past this issue and look at the greater picture. You see hope. Hope that the world will grow. Hope that the world has a chance.  Hope that you, yourself, can help heal it.  

These moments can happen within minutes and give a lifelong memory.  I have experienced this in many types of relationships. The one commonality I have found with these experiences is what it creates after.  A bond is formed that is pure and true. One that I like to think of as simply a true friend.

I have seen so many people believe that they are the center of the universe and that they must prioritize themselves before anyone else.  In a way they are not wrong, it’s your body, and who else is going to keep track of it if not you? Yet in such a globally connected world it would be nice if we were connected by more than just our cell phones and Snapchat streaks. 

What I describe in the previous paragraphs is the ultimate connection.  The connection between two individuals that for a split second, are closer to being one than two.  As a human race I believe we should strive to have as many of these connections as possible. If we become connected, the world would be a much more understanding place.  When one understands their neighbor, they are more likely to bring cookies, rather than complaints. When one understands their rival’s motives, they are more likely to find an agreement, rather than an argument.  When one understands the pain billions suffer every day, the more likely they are to donate millions to those very people. 

My intended takeaway from this post is to please make a connection.  A real connection. One that involves you to not be you. One that makes you them, and if you do this enough you will eventually come to realize that they are the same as you, and always will be. 

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.” – Maya Angelou

How Vulnerability can lead to Invincibility

Vulnerability is the state of being exposed to possible harm or attacks, either through physical or emotional means. Almost nobody wants to feel this, yet arguably everyone needs to. 

With few exceptions, people are born with the need to emotionally connect. This commonality largely leads to our desire for comfort and well-being. In short, we want to be happy. It’s that simple. A way to ensure such happiness is to minimize emotions that go against it. To do this, many of us attempt to minimize our vulnerability, our state when discomfort can affect our well-being. Our intentions are clear cut, but the consequences of these actions are damaging.

To reiterate, vulnerability is defined as a state of possibly being attacked emotionally and physically. Both mental and physical components of our well-being are affected by our vulnerability to certain situations. Yet there is a reason why we, the public conscious, mostly associate vulnerability with mental attacks. 

Humanity has created a society that allows physical safety for us. Yet this is a fairly recent achievement. Of humanity’s two-hundred thousand years of existence, only five percent of that has been spent building civilizations. Before that we spent our days running around, looking for our next meal. In those years of do or die, we learned many skills and ways to think, one of which was to contain our vulnerability from the outside world.

Nowadays, the typical person is much safer physically than his or her ancestors. Because of this, our physical defenses have gone down over the centuries and been replaced by mental ones. The shift in how we defend ourselves has allowed people the ability to close themselves off from others. The issue with this is that people cannot suppress one emotion and leave the rest untouched. In my personal experience and research, attempting to suppress one emotion will result in all of them being suppressed.

The worst part is that our technological innovations have made this work easier. How many times have you looked down at your phone rather than exchanging a slightly awkward ‘hello’ with someone? At that moment we feel insecure because we don’t know our relationship with that person. Instead of addressing it, many of us take the easy way out and ‘happen’ to be looking the other way. We still walk past that person, but it feels a whole lot easier because mentally we are miles away. 

This phenomenon is also partly why I believe people get mentally addicted to objects and activities.  Whether that be a phone, drug, alcohol, food, or sex, we begin to rely on these things because they make us feel less vulnerable. When under the influence, people enter a different headspace that distracts them from their psychological pain (not to mention most drugs flood the brain with dopamine, a chemical that causes happiness). Addicts need an emotion, or lack of one, and find that relief in something external to them, no matter the consequences. 

I think we can all agree that we would rather feel happy than sad. The harder question is how do we achieve this? How do we, ourselves, minimize sadness, rather than having something suppress it? I think the answer to this question is by allowing our vulnerability to coexist with us, by accepting that it is an emotion that is as valid as any other. Our emotions make us who we are, and we should be proud of them, all of them.

Not just the part you want to see, but the whole thing.  Yes, the glorified Instagram image of you is great, but the picture of you before you understood that hardly anything matches with orange is just as important.  The A you got in mathematics should make you proud, but so should the C you got in Spanish. We should strive to see ourselves for who we are and smile anyways.

Not just that but we also need to take risks.  To not hide in our phones when we are unsure whether to wave at the person walking past us.  We should instead look them in the eyes and say hello. Sure, they may not say it back, and you may feel embarrassed, but who cares.  At least you tried, and maybe next time that person will say hi to you after he or she reconsiders their action. This fear of being vulnerable and looking weak needs to end.  We are all weak in some ways, and we are all strong in other ways. Let’s embrace that and be proud of who we are, who we truly are.