Human Limitations Chapter 4

Wisdom – Empathy/Perspectives

If you see a stranger got hit by a car, do you immediately feel as if you just experienced the same event?

What about a crying widow mourning alone? A ecstatic baseball player who’s jumping around, swinging his arms cheering?

Are you able to relate to other people’s experiences? Or you would simply shrug your shoulders and go about your day?

We all have varying degree of empathy, mainly due to our unique life experiences and mental capabilities.

You may not have been hit by a car before, but you may have broken a bone or been severely injured in the past, thus making you more capable of being empathetic towards others who are going through similar events.

Perhaps you may have gone through many breakups in relationships, but it is easy for you to simply brush it off and move on. The lack of emotional impact you receive from breakups makes you wonder why some people are so susceptible to such experiences.

Or do you feel that the only feeling that matters is yours, and no one else matters?

The capability of understanding another person’s perspectives takes wisdom. The more you are able to walk a mile in someone’s shoes, the more likely they may welcome you to walk along with them.

Human empathy is not without limits. Each individual can only experience so much, whether it’s cultural, spiritual, physical or otherwise. We can try our best to relate, but the uniqueness of each person will never allow us to understand each other completely.

Furthermore, empathy may be misplaced, and misused. What a person wants may often be different than what a person actually need. Your empathy may allow you to provide a person what they desire, but such action may result in a detrimental outcome instead of helping in any substantial way. For example, if a person loves sweets so much that he or she is one cup cake away from a heart attack, being empathetic to their desire and enabling it may be the last thing you’ll ever do for the person.

Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”

1 Corinthians 3:18-19(NIV)

What do you think? Have your empathy helped you and others in life? Tell me in the comments!

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