What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
I once heard someone
90 years old
tell an audience
that she regretted not studying
her favorite foreign language
sooner.
When asked how sooner,
she replied
“30 years ago.”
When asked why then,
she replied
“When I was 60,
I told myself
that I don’t have much time left
so why bother
learning another language.
…
Little did I know,
that I had 30 more years in me.”
We sometimes say
“if I were them,
I wouldn’t have done that.”
The question is not merely
whether we would have behaved
differently.
The question is
had we the same
emotions,
intentions,
needs,
and values
whether we would have behaved
differently.
There
is a world of a difference
between trying to persuade
and persuasion emerging
as a byproduct.
There is a world of a difference
between trying to help
and helpfulness emerging
as a byproduct.
The day our employees stop complaining
is not necessarily the day
they no longer have complaints.
It may be the day
they have stopped
caring.
