The other day I was trying to explain to my 10 year old the concept of considering someone else’s point of view when having a disagreement. I said, “You know how you have hazel eyes and I have blue eyes, right? Well, what if that affected the way we see different colors?”
“But we will never really know,” he added immediately. Quite perceptive I thought. We won’t ever really know exactly how someone ‘sees’ things. If only ‘seeing’ what other people ‘see’ the way they ‘see’ it was as easy as trying on their glasses. But that’s what empathy is – trying to understand someone else’s experience without having that experience yourself.
The concept of empathy was best driven home for me in a communications class I took nearly 20 years ago. The class taught us to break down and visualize the parts of speech in a way I had never before considered. This visualization became particularly effective for me in my Customer Service career. Coming in to this class I had thought of communication as a simple transaction: and idea is formed in person A and transferred to person B, typically in writing or orally.
However, in this class we explored things like the mode, the medium, etc. that all work together to shape and deliver the message being transferred. But just as importantly these same factors work on the receiving end. And finally we considered anything that may get in between point A and point B to muddle or interfere with that transfer (we called it ‘noise’). The final result - - a complex system not unlike a kind of Rube Goldberg contraption much more complex in design than the result produced.
It turns out that everyone’s past experiences shape their lenses and thereby influence the way they perceive their future ones – no wonder the number of continents is socially dependent and Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus. If only empathy were as easy as trying on someone else’s glasses. I’d lend you my rose-colored glasses any time.
“But we will never really know,” he added immediately. Quite perceptive I thought. We won’t ever really know exactly how someone ‘sees’ things. If only ‘seeing’ what other people ‘see’ the way they ‘see’ it was as easy as trying on their glasses. But that’s what empathy is – trying to understand someone else’s experience without having that experience yourself.
The concept of empathy was best driven home for me in a communications class I took nearly 20 years ago. The class taught us to break down and visualize the parts of speech in a way I had never before considered. This visualization became particularly effective for me in my Customer Service career. Coming in to this class I had thought of communication as a simple transaction: and idea is formed in person A and transferred to person B, typically in writing or orally.
A ---> B
However, in this class we explored things like the mode, the medium, etc. that all work together to shape and deliver the message being transferred. But just as importantly these same factors work on the receiving end. And finally we considered anything that may get in between point A and point B to muddle or interfere with that transfer (we called it ‘noise’). The final result - - a complex system not unlike a kind of Rube Goldberg contraption much more complex in design than the result produced.
It turns out that everyone’s past experiences shape their lenses and thereby influence the way they perceive their future ones – no wonder the number of continents is socially dependent and Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus. If only empathy were as easy as trying on someone else’s glasses. I’d lend you my rose-colored glasses any time.
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