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NO, YOU CAN’T PUT YOURSELF IN MY SHOES

Hi, I’m Sam,

Every living thing is made up of something tangible. Humans are made up of things outside our biological makeup. Our knowledge, learnings, desires, wishes, surroundings, and experiences. As a result of all these, no two humans are completely the same and as such cannot understand another person even if you experience the same thing.

 

There are feelings we don't feel but we constantly think about them because sometimes it feels like we can't access those feelings even when we try. We always struggle to try to get through those feelings even when we don't know how to feel them but we encourage ourselves to get through them in whatever way we can. This now confuses situations when someone tries to understand what you're going through when you can't even explain or even feel what is happening to you. At that moment it feels like the other person is not being honest with you, when all they're trying to do is to make you feel better and show empathy.

 

 

Our situations may seem alike on the surface but when you go into details, you realize that they're actually not the same, so another person cannot fully understand and as such cannot know how you feel. The details of a situation that seems so alike will further make you understand why someone might "overreact" or "underreact" to seemingly the same situation. No matter how much we want to make a situation seem alike, there is always a glaring or unnoticeable difference.

 

My best friend cannot be going through a heartbreak and I tell him I know what he's going through just because I may have been heartbroken in the past as well. Some things determine someone's reaction at a particular time and we cannot just fully understand it enough to tell the other person “I know what you're going through”. In some way saying you know what they're going through does not really convey the empathy we think it does. It sometimes translates to "I know what you're going through and you're either not as pained as you should be or you're making this seem like more of a deal than it is". We can be there for people and let them go through things the way they want but not necessarily try to make them know or think we know exactly what they are going through because honestly, we cannot completely know. Some of the reactions people attach to things may not even be about what has happened but what will happen as a result of what has happened and we don't know what will happen next so how do we know exactly what the other person is actually feeling to tell them "I know exactly how you feel"?

 

 

 

Your sympathy or empathy for someone doesn't only have to come when you put yourselves in that person's shoes, there are so many other ways empathy can be expressed. When someone dies or is killed no one says I know how they feel just to extend sympathy because you don't know how it feels to die but people still show sympathy towards the situation which means there's always another way to extend sympathy without involving ourselves in the situation at hand.

 

There really has to be another way to tell someone that what they're going through is serious and valid without having to hypothetically put ourselves in their shoes, not to sound weird but is that a way for us to wish terrible things on ourselves or wish that the bad things that happened to us stayed longer? Why I think I have an issue with this is because it’s never used in a happy or celebratory situation, it always comes out when something bad or not-so-happy has happened to someone. You don't see someone celebrating a promotion or a new child and the best way for them to know we're happy for them is by telling them we can put ourselves in their shoes.

 

Its Ok to show genuine love to the people we care about and even to strangers, but how our actions are received is what matters the most and I hope that for every genuine person out there, the love and care you extend to others will be received the right way as intended and blossom and also come back to you in multiple folds from those you expect it from and those you don’t.   






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