What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
If responsibility
is response + ability —
as in our ability to respond
to a given situation —
then
it is only human
that when we experience too much tension,
our responsibility
gets hampered,
the range of our responsibility
gets diminished.
Others
may wish to hold us accountable
or our own sense of duty and obligation
may haunt us,
but neither
helps us recover
our hampered
responsibility
or restore
our range
of responsibility.
To take responsibility
back,
our tension
has to be released.
It’s easy to acknowledge luck
when its credit
is not tied
to our self-worth.
It’s hard to acknowledge luck
when its credit
is tied
to our self-worth.
To find out
with whom
or what
you’re hyper-empathizing,
notice how you react
when things
or people
other than your “self”
are threatened.
If your goal
is to lift weights,
you can achieve that goal
by lifting weights.
But for your muscles to develop
you must put the weights down
and help your muscles
recover.
Without recovery
you may achieve,
achieve,
and achieve
with minimal development
while promoting fatigue
and injury.
What if
our psychology
and our relationships
were like muscles?
Happiness
is something
we already have.
If we don’t feel it
it’s because we only feel it
when we see it
with appreciation.
We often learn this
after
we’ve lost it.
As we all of a sudden
remember
having seen it
without appreciation.
All the while,
appreciating it now
since we have lost it.
To notice our greed
…
we can make
a strict promise
on exactly when it is
we will feel like
it’s enough,
then watch ourselves
break
that promise.
One way
we can realize empathy
with what we previously could not
is to search
for a metaphor.
If “I would not do
what they did
if I were in their situation,”
signals
an absence
of a metaphor.
Then “In what situation
would I do
what they did?”
signals
a search
for a metaphor.
Sometimes
we ask
“Am I doing
enough?”
Forgetting to ask
“Enough
to what?”
Without the answer
to the second question,
our sense of progress
can be
unclear.
Once
our sense of progress
becomes
clear,
the first question
may become
unnecessary.
We realize empathy
when we empathize
with someone
or something‒
including ourselves‒
through an unexpected
realization.
One that might makes us go
“Ah ha!”
“Ah…” or
“Ha ha ha!”
concerning something
we either did not
or had incorrectly assumed
to have understood
or appreciated
enough.
“They’re going to be quick
to blame me.”
said the founder,
worrying
of the employees’ backlash.
“How would it be different,
if you were quicker?”
I asked.
“What do you mean?”
he asked.
“How would it be different,
if you were even quicker
than them?”
I asked again,
with emphasis.
“Quicker?”
he asked.
“…”
I sat there,
silent.
“You mean if I were to blame myself
before they did?”
“…”
I waited.
Silence ensued.
“… You’re talking about
taking responsibility.”
The reply came back,
eventually.