Inevitably there will be times when you have setbacks or things don t go your way. Maybe you didn't get a job you thought you were sure to get. Maybe you lost a job unexpectedly, didn't win a contract, or lost a major client. Your car always seems to break down right after you've had some other unexpected expense. These kinds of situations immediately place us in crisis. They don t feel good, but sometimes they re what we need in order to grow. The beautiful thing about crises is that they force us to take a step back and reevaluate what s going on in our lives and rediscover what we truly want and need. When we get over that initial shock and feeling of disappointment, we might realize that maybe that job wasn't really the best for us anyway. Maybe, just maybe, that wasn't what you really wanted to spend your life doing. Maybe that friend was holding you back instead of pushing you forward. The way I deal with crises of these sorts is simple: If something doesn't go my way professionally, I try to create a situation that would be more rewarding than the situation originally planned. A while ago, I was offered a job that looked very promising. After I accepted the offer, they pushed the start date back three times, later informing me (via e-mail) that they wanted to bring me on in the near future but I should feel free to explore other options. I was extremely disappointed. I felt disrespected and angry, but decided to make the best of the situation and follow my dream of working internationally. I then flew to Santiago, Chile and had great professional and personal experiences I wouldn't have had otherwise. Later, reflecting back on the original opportunity, I realized that working for a company that avoids a start date three times and then can t pick up the phone to explain the situation is probably not where I need to spend my time. Use setbacks as an opportunity to put your goals in order and act on them. In the moment, it s difficult to look at a setback as temporary, but they are. They happen to everybody. It s how you respond to them that will determine how they affect you.
It hurts my heart to see just how much devastation is caused by the destruction of earthquakes, tsunamis, civil wars, terrorist activities, or other economic, environmental, or political unrests. As we see time and time again, it hurts the hearts of many others as well, as we often donate large amounts of money, time, and volunteers to provide medical attention, counseling, foodstuffs, and other resources. Regardless of whether the issues are across the street or across the globe, something inside us puts our differences to the side so we focus on the human suffering at stake.
In our attempts to provide foreign aid, we often fail to deliver long-term, sustainable impacts that can lead to true change. I think one of the primary reasons this happens is because we look to provide said change, rather than work with the people to develop culturally relevant solutions. We throw money at a problem, but because of the siphoning of it at different levels, very little actually reaches its intended use, making aid money a tremendous source of wealth for the already wealthy. This also perpetuates political unrest and corruption. We tend to judge success by how much money we raise rather than the how much change occurs. It feels good to say we raised x amount of dollars. We can go about our days feeling like we contributed to the solution, and we have. But at the end of the day, we need to make sure that a sustainable solution is reached.
As outsiders we tend to preach the importance of infrastructure. “If only we can irrigate the land to bring fresh water, we can eliminate many of the diseases that claim the lives of so many,” we say. “We’ve got to educate the people about cause and effect so they can change their behavior,” we explain. These sound great, but due to limited funding, one to two year project periods, and volunteers who often either can’t or don’t want to stay long enough to see the changes through, we often leave a problem with little more than a failed experiment. The solutions that work for one group or in one place may not work for another. I’m a big proponent of education, infrastructure, healthcare, and economic development, but how can we work to create sustainable solutions? Grameen Bank and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) are doing it by brining microfinance to Bangladesh, enabling the people to build their own economy by hiring locals and refusing bribery. How else can we attack problems so build solutions that last?
Empathy increases understanding, productivity, and drives innovative solutions to various problems in the workplace, economy, and society. Developing socially conscious solutions requires the ability to discover issues and deal with those issues from multicultural perspectives. Empathy is crucial to understanding the motivations that drive others to act the way they do.
Empathy ≠ Sympathy
It is important to note that empathy and sympathy are not synonymous. Sympathy is the feeling of sorrow for somebody else’s misfortune. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand another person’s feelings. Those feelings can be happy, sad, or something altogether different.
Why Empathy Is Important
We are often quick to make judgments of others’ actions. We often assume that poor decisions are a result of a person’s irresponsibility or their individual lack of intelligence, willpower, etc. Many times this is the case. However, many times poor decisions are a result of poor available choices. Sometimes a child is obese because they simply eat too much. Sometimes they’re obese because there exists no safe place for them play. “Last school year, 258 public school students were shot in Chicago, 32 fatally, on their way to or from school, traveling through gang-infested territory and narcotics wars on the South and West Sides,” states an article from the NY Times. Do you think these students are concerned more about choosing organic products at the local grocery store, or making it home alive? For these kids, there is a lack of positive choices, which leads them to make undesirable decisions. Youth Advocates Programs, Inc. recruits, educates, and trains advocates from within the community to help create safer environments for these kids and others, which lead to better options from which to choose. These advocates are well-equipped to empathize with those who need help because they’ve been there themselves.
When we take empathy into account, we start to uncover some of the root issues that cause larger scale problems, which, in turn, lead to more sustainable solutions. I’d like to hear your opinions and stories of empathy. What issues would you like to bring to light? How do you feel the use (or lack of use) of empathy will work (or not work) in evaluating decisions and coming up with viable solutions to issues?
