What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
When we realize empathy
what we see
changes.
When what we see
changes
what we focus on
can also change.
When what we focus on
changes
what we value
can also change.
When what we value
changes
what we decide
can also change.
When what we decide
changes
what we do
can also change.
At first,
I thought I had to do something huge
for my life
to be worth something.
Until I realized
that doing something huge
would still not be enough
unless I could feel
that it was indeed
worth it.
In other words,
what I was after
was a feeling.
…
Once I realized
that validation
was what I was after,
I noticed I lacked clarity
on whose validation I craved
and why.
…
Once I gained clarity
on whose validation I craved
and why,
it turned out
there were only a handful of people
whose validation
I deeply craved.
So I went to them
one by one
to learn how I can provide them
value,
only to learn
how remarkably simple—
not easy, but simple—
it was
to do so.
It was then
that I realized
that at the end of the day,
the most difficult challenge
wasn’t
earning their validation.
The most difficult challenge
was accepting
that my life can have significant worth
without doing something
huge.
Too many times,
have I heard that talent
without hard work
is nothing.
The over-emphasis on hard work
can mask the fact
that talent is talent
precisely because
it’s not hard work.
Sometimes
we spend so much time
trying to get better at what is hard
at the expense of discovering how what comes easy,
our talent,
can be shaped
to provide significant value.
It can be useful
to think of intuition
as a guide.
A guide does not claim
to have the right
answer.
A guide merely claims
to know something
worthy
of paying
attention.
We may choose
to ignore the guide.
We may also choose
to follow the guide
and learn what the guide
knows.
But may we not
blame the guide
for our decisions.
The guide never claimed
to have the right
answer.
There are two kinds of sacrifice.
The kind that feels like one.
vs
The kind that doesn’t.
Sometimes we’re willing to lose what other people judge as “precious.”
because it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice to us,
because we feel it’s worth it.
They may not be able to understand why,
but we do it anyway.
Other times, we’re unwilling to lose what other people judge as “trivial.”
because it does feel like a sacrifice to us,
because we feel it’s not worth it.
They may negatively judge us,
but we stand firm.
To think of loss and value
as something that can be understood and appreciated
without taking into account the emotional component
is to misunderstand and to misjudge
the human condition.
Any time we have the urge to say “I disagree,”
It’s worth asking ourselves “What purpose am I hoping to fulfill?”
If the purpose of expressing disagreement is…
