"While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him."- Fyodor Dostoevsky
This is a quote that Sam Richards used in his TED talk about empathy. His main point was for people to walk a mile or even an inch in another mans shoes. That if we can try to understand other people we can create a great social reform To begin his talk he gave an example to think about. That we were all Americans and in the 1800's the Chinese came in and took all of our coal and they built their economy around coal and the energy that is created by coal. Mr. Richards then asked how would we feel as Americans when we are living in poverty and China is full of riches off of our coal and the Chinese don't really care about us all they care about is our coal. How would we Americans feel? I know that I would be angry I would see all these people living the life I wanted and being prosperous and having many things that I just could never have all because they took something from me. Then Sam Richards gave the example, that we were to put ourselves in the shoes of an Arab Muslim living in Iraq. How we would feel about the American "invaders" that were coming in an starting a war over oil. The Americans didn't care about us all they cared about was OIL. And on top of all that they were Christians who didn't understand our religion and they told us that our God is fake and their God is real, that they were on crusade in the Middle East. (Crusade is defined as any vigorous, aggressive movement for the defense or advancement of an idea, cause, etc). The last time there was a crusade it was a religious movement against the Muslims in the middle east. Sam Richards asked the audience how they would react if they were the Muslim in Iraq today. I know for one I wouldn't accept the Americans moving in on my land very openly, I would have a skewed view of what they were doing and quite frankly I would not appreciate it.
What I got from all of this is that everyone in the world needs to take a lesson in Empathy. I feel like that there would be a lot less issues in the world if we could just take a minute and step away from the situation and see the world from someone elses shoes. That is what Empathy is, it is the ability to see the world from someone elses shoes. America defiantly has some issues with that. Like we don't really think about how the people in the other countries are really going to feel. We just kind of brush everything off because the bad things aren't happening to us or on our homelands. We just write it off and don't care; and its not like it is broad casted to us how the other people of the planet feel all we see is how we feel. Empathy is an important skill for everyone to have, its even emphasized as a chapter in A Whole New Mind. I believe that in order to be successful it is prominent that the world knows about empathy in order for the world to not fall apart and for it to be good we all have to walk a mile in another persons shoes.
I thank Sam Richards for teaching that in his inspirational TED talk
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