WIBCI EMPATHY were the norm?
Wouldn’t It Be Cool If time spent with others were more a part of our own EVOLVING?
Recently I was with a group of people and I was discussing the disappointment I felt while talking with my relatives. I related how I wasn’t asked questions about my life beyond ‘how are things?’. There were no follow-up questions, penetrating looks, or requests for more background. I seemed to serve only as an opportunity mirror used to bounce back or redirect my words into anecdotes related to themselves. In none of these conversations did I walk away feeling more understood, more capable to tackle that which needs tackling; I had no advantageous new point of view to consider.
BUT this is not the part of the conversation that I wish to be considered the most poignant point of this.
When I was done venting, the response I received was most unexpected. From the three individuals present I was to believe that it was I that was the oddity in these disappointing discussions, not my relatives. I was told that I asked people to ‘start from the beginning’ and asked about previous conversations, and THIS is what was unusual, NOT their uninterestedness.
I was the empathetic exception. They reported that even their most intimate of correspondents don’t ask of them, the questions I expect to be asked by others.
Huh…
As I’m writing a book, I see conversations with others as chances to see the world differently, possible viewpoints of characters yet to be born. I know what I think of the world and I don’t care whether you agree or not; I find no need, unless genuinely asked, to try out my opinions on you to see if you agree or find me intelligent. What I’m coming into these conversations not knowing is how it all looks from your shoes, that’s what I want to know. I want to know YOU, I want to hear what YOU think, I want to consider what YOU consider. If I learn something about you, or see something from a different angle, I might learn a little something about me.
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