Recognizing the value of the experiences of other people, and looking at a situation from their vantage point, helps us to define solutions more accurately and grow together.
Empathy — the capacity, willingness and practice of considering another person’s experience and attempting to see things as they do — is often thought of as a feeling to experience instead of a skill to cultivate. Empathy is value placed on the understanding of another’s situation. It is half of the odd epoxy (along with self-interest) that binds community. Empathy keeps us good. Us as individuals and us as a whole. When we stop considering the impact of our actions on others, the consequences quickly become clear.
Empathy as a sense or capacity does not seem to be at a constant strength throughout one’s life. It starts minimally, grows (and sometimes peaks) in childhood, and at times seems to dull as our age and responsibilities climb. Like physical strength, it feels like it takes more and more vigilance to sustain an empathetic outlook as our worldview becomes more entrenched. Empathy can prove a frustrating foil to reasoned hypotheses. Some people seem more highly attuned to empathy or carry the inclination closer to the surface. Sometimes we just forget about it, or at least become less mindful of it.
Yet empathy is a critical capacity in so many areas of our lives.
Not long before Lake Area Middle School was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Jess Rimington was facilitating a classroom exchange program there; one of the earliest implementations of her then-fledgling organization, One World Youth Project. Jess’s classroom was paired with a classroom in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Over the course of the academic year, the students in her New Orleans classroom and their Mongolian counterparts shared their experiences, stories, and learned the similarities of their lives. They got to know each other.
When the floodwalls were breached, the Gentilly was flooded and with it, Lake Area Middle School. Jess heard nothing from her New Orleanian students. It would be months before she would hear the harrowing stories of students waving down planes from their rooftops or hear about the boy who was forced to break through his ceiling to get free.
The practice of empathy seems to have been a central force in Barack Obama’s life for a very long time. It was certainly front and center from the moment he stepped onto the stage of the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
His capacity for empathy allowed him to connect with a broad range of people. His recognition of an empathy deficit, and the public’s unquenched desire for a more empathetic world, gave momentum to the movement that led to his Presidency. Edwin Rutsch from progressivespirit.com has compiled a collection of videos of Barack Obama speaking on the topic and value of Empathy.
Edwin Rutsch from progressivespirit.com has compiled a collection of videos of Barack Obama speaking on the topic and value of Empathy.