It’s all too easy to criticise and moan about someone else life. To pour scorn on their choices and decisions, to berate them for how easy they have it or the wasted opportunities that they seem to throw away whilst we labour and suffer and strive. but what do we really know about another life and its challenges?
We have all become far too intolerant of others, far too judgemental – not pausing for a moment any more to consider the hardships of another world – the unique challenges that some entertain on a daily basis – invisible to the many, things that some might long for but which others – born into – have no choice over at all.
Empathy is an emergent gift rising within the public consciousness at this moment in time for this very reason. A power that enables us to feel the emotions of another – to walk for a moment in their shoes! A gift that can help to bridge the divide of understanding and promote compassion, a power that can help us to see that we are all one – all cut from the same Divine cloth no matter our riches or fame or position in life.
Empathy then may yet not only be the salvation of our species – helping us to transcend culture, creed, class and religion but also be a stepping stone towards compassion, mercy, forgiveness, non judgement and in time unconditional love! A gift that science – what with the discovery of “mirror neutrons” in the brain – go ahead and google them, they are fascinating – may yet not only accept but also acknowledge the worthiness of as being something that might be cultivated and utilised.
Now then – more than ever before – we should endeavour to stop, pause and reach out with our senses when we find ourselves jumping to outraged conclusions about those around us whose actions have “pressed our buttons” and before we allow ourselves to rant pause to tune in. Often it has been historically the case that only in tragic retrospect have we been able to conjure sympathy for those who have suffered invisibly and whose suffering has led to their confinement or worse deaths. Let us then all begin a new wave of those who might dare to try to feel what someone else might be going through before we judge!
