What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
The profundity of looking into the mirror
is not merely that we’re looking at our selves,
but that we’re looking at our selves from an other’s perspective.
It is by looking through the eyes of a different perspective
that we learn to become self-aware.
To lose our willingness to realize our empathy with such an other,
an other who sees things differently from us,
is to lose our ability to be self-aware.
There’s a meme on how lobsters grow
by shedding their rigid shell and producing a new one.
It points out that before it can grow,
a lobster feels stress against their shell.
Thus, the moral of the story is:
1) Treating stress as a problem to be solved is to prevent growth.
2) Stress can be a sign of growth.
What it skims through, though,
is how lobsters need a rock
to protect itself from predators
before it can shed its shell.
So if our client, employee, boss, or partner
seems to be unwilling to let go of their shell,
or to grow & innovate,
the question isn’t “Why are they being so rigid?!”
It’s “Do we have a rock in place?”
Let me know if you’re willing to be a rock.
One day, a 92 year old man asked his 62 year old son.
“Son. What bird is that?”
“A magpie.” answered the son.
Few minutes later, the old man asked again.
“What bird is that?”
“A magpie, dad. A magpie.” answered the son.
Few minutes later, the old man asked yet again.
“What bird is that?”
“I just told you! It’s a magpie!”
“I see.” nodded the old man.
Few minutes later, the old man asked
“What bird is that?”
“Oh my God! You deaf, dad?! I just told you!! It’s a f@$in’ magpie!”
…
Mother, who’s watched the scene unfold
remarked with a teary gaze,
“When you were a child,
you used to ask your father the same question
over and over again
for years.
Would you be willing to bear one day?”
Derivation source: youtube
When we experience guilt in relation to someone,
it may also be a sign
that we have forgotten to express our gratitude
in relation to that someone.