What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
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.
When a decision
leads to something
“bad,”
we call it
“wrong.”
Until the same decision
leads to something
“good.”
Then
we call it
the “best.”
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.
“Why didn’t you
tell me?”
I asked.
“I didn’t want
to be a burden.”
she responded.
…
“But what if
you had died?”
was the question
I never asked.
“Have you ever thought
about the guilt
that I would have had
to live with?”
was the resentment
I never expressed.
“In your desire
to be a good mother
you could have made me
a bad son.”
was the blow
I never threw.
…
“You’re not my mother
because you’re not
a burden.”
was the acknowledgment
I never made.
“You’re my mother
because you are.”
was the tear
I never shed.
“I love you.”
was the honesty
I never expressed.
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.
A tight corner
is a place, where we feel
as if we have
no choice.
To tell someone
backed into a corner
to not do something,
is to attempt
to further decrease
their choice.
Until we learn
to receive…
No.
Until we learn
to let others
give
to us…
No.
Until we learn
to realize empathy with ourselves
in a way
that gives us the courage
to admit
that we need others
to give to us,…
Until then,
we can get stuck
lending
despite intending
to give.
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.