EMPATHY LIVING

EMPATHY LIVING 7 July 2011

Living a Life with Social Empathy

Creating a Better Society through Empathic Approach.By Jatin Chheda
Living a Life with Empathy Forgiveness and letting go is the biggest freedom one can give oneself. We are all directly or indirectly part of this frantic paced, cold and ruthless society in which ego and pride is more important than love, tolerance, acceptance and peace. We have quite unfortunately forgotten the meaning of harnessing love into our lives. Today our entire lifestyle and the way we think is being driven by various media. By media, I mean written, television, radio, Internet, movies, etc. The entire societies are dependent on psyches of people who are stung by the very ideas they stress on, of being low on patience, tolerance, empathy and accepting one another. There is a continuous broadcast of negative emotions and negative communication like criticism, commenting and hatred being projected in some way or the other in every form of media we come

EMPATHY LIVING 7 July 2011

Schools, Television, Media and Organisations today need to cultivate the idea of Living with Empathy. Right from childhood, a child needs to be thought and needs to be made to understand living with joy, unity, love and patience rather than competition, criticism, hatred and anger.

across. Mediums like advertisement, news or magazine articles, sermons by the new age holy men, leaders, politicians, news reporters, celebrities all have to broadcast a negative agenda to make point. There is hate, anger, criticism, etc., in their media. All this constant chain of negative projections has created worldwide phenomena of anger. There is anger and low tolerance in every sect and area of life we come across. Be it at work, at home, on television, Internet, news, music, and movies and many mediums we seek a moment of rejuvenation from. Sensationalism and controversy hungry media is just waiting to pounce on every chance it gets to sting any individual, organization, idea or belief to create sensational piece of news reporting. The result of this is an outburst of ruthless and venomous mental and emotional projections inuencing the masses and making them angry. Before the facts are evaluated, the media and people across the world judge the projected situation as a violation of right and humanity and declare the act criminal, empowering themselves with the right to punish at their will. Nobody really sits back and ponders upon the facts,

EMPATHY LIVING 7 July 2011

the true story. Every piece of evidence or idea in many cases is fabricated to destruct and suocate the life out of the victims soul. The result is that we start believing that this loud display of anger, hate and criticism is right, and this is the ultimate way to react to seek justice and ght for our rights. Hatred, anger, ruthlessness, allegations, criticism: these emotions are like a contagious virus they get into our system and take control over our emotional, mental and psychological behavioral patterns. The result of this is We start believing this is the only way to deal with any situation we consider is violating or harming our could be idealistic way of life. The further result of all this negative projections we constantly expose ourselves to is that we start living it, we start bringing it into our daily lives, our homes, our families. We start living these negative projections. Societies, political leaders, human right activists, bureaucrats, bosses, schools, teachers, etc. Every one of these individuals and institutions start projecting and cultivating these behavioral patterns in our lives. Think about it, each one of these institutions functions in anyone or all of these set patterns to govern our way of life, these patterns of anger, hatred, competition, insult, criticism, failures, fears, and every other negative emotion we go through is imbibed into our system through numerous mediums of the society. Our societies are programmed to function on these core values (or rather torturous ideologies) of to condemn and to criticize. Think about it, our societies our found on these ideologies of negative emotions and negative behaviors. I think the most important ingredient having gone missing in our lives, our societies; is of empathy & love. I most strongly believe that we still have time and much work to do to encourage Empathy in our lifestyle. I use the word Empathy because it has by far the broadest virtue that can empower us to b a more tolerant and loving society. What does Empathy mean? To show Empathy is to identify with anothers feelings. It is to emotionally put yourself in the place of another. Its to emotionally incline yourself towards others physical, emotional and physiological state of mind & body. Empathy is the art to cultivate within oneself, the ability to emotionally adapt, to understand another persons state. In simple words, to develop enough maturity within ones self to place oneself in the other persons shoe. Like a famous quote says, I kept crying for new shoes, until I saw a man with

EMPATHY LIVING 7 July 2011

no feet. Simple words, gargantuan meaning. The moment, we stop focussing our entire mind & energy struggling with what we should or could have & the moment, we start appreciating and cherishing that we do have, we can create a balance, within us, and bring our racing mind to a halt, even if for a moment, to observe a moment of inner peace. Yes, this is where the secret lies, in Inner Peace. Every person has it in them to discover inner peace within their conscious mind, the only eort that is required is to strike a balance, a balance within. Dont weigh your life on the basis of haves and have not, dont base your life on the basis of how many friends, cars, bank accounts, credit cards, awards, medals, titles, etc. You have or you should or you could have. You see, the moment you start weighing your worth on the basis of these materialistic accolades & posessions, you start putting yourself on this running treadmill, where you have to keep running to be able to keep up the balance of life, and you keep adding the weight of the desire of could be and should be and must have, and you keep running and running and running and adding more and more weight on your shoulders. Now what is this eventually going to do to you? Even a kindergarten child would be able to answer this situation, Your going to exhaust yourself with all the endless running after, and adding all the burden and weight on you shoulders, and you will notice that even as of now you are on this Treadmill with hundreds of these burden & weight on your shoulder, and you are running and you are going on running and there is no end. Nothing seems to be enough and it just doesnt seem to end and you just dont seem to be getting it right. You are right, You just cant seem to be get it right, cause what you are running after is

EMPATHY LIVING 7 July 2011

desire, a desire to be, a desire to have, a desire to own, and the moment you have any one of these, that very moment you realize, its just not enough! There is so much more you could and you should have. And you run and you run and you run and you just dont seem to get it right. So what is it? Where is it? How will you bring yourself to getting it right? How will you have all that will bring you to a point of having it all and yet not be burdened by the weights of desires and endless frantic running? The answer lies in having inner peace. To be, in unison and balance with yourself and your environment. To have, that moment of perfect balance, and a perfect feeling of security, happiness and ultimate peace. To keep aside constant fears, worries, tensions, anxiety and stress. To let it go, and let in the air of fulllment and content. For a moment, forget all that is making you angry, forget all that is making you worry, forget all that brings fear and tension in your mind and body, for a moment stop thinking of all that is past and all that could be the future, just live and feel the moment, the present, the now. Lighten up yourself, push aside all the weights and burdens, and just cherish this very moment, cherish the now, cherish the mental and physical form of you, your environment and everything you have around you. Feel lucky and embrace the fact that you are lucky to have all that you have and everything you have that you could not or should not have had. This is called living in the moment. Cherish yourself and live in the moment. The moment you are able to do this, you have quite outstandingly created the balance within you, and cultivated inner peace. You are at peace with yourself, your environment, your situation, your family, your friends, your society, and you are just living in this very moment, in the now, not driven by fears of worries of yesterday or tomorrow, and you have let gone of all the negative emotions, burdens and feelings that you uselessly carry, cause suddenly you just dont feel responsible to own and bear these burdens, you are free and you love this air of freedom that this living in the moment gives you, it is bringing in a fresh rush of energy in you and you feel powerful and deeply at peace. Now take time and think about others, all the less fortunate, think of all those deprived and forgotten by the frantically paced life, think of all those who could have all that they deserve to, but have been less fortunate to not be able to have. This is empathy, an emotional understanding of others state, while still feeling the joy and peace within, while feeling a sense of power within, while feeling a deep sense of fulllment and peace within, while feeling happiness within to share and to care

EMPATHY LIVING 7 July 2011

for everyone, without any expectation of personal gain or personal prot. You dont feel the urge to seek your personal gain and prot in this bargain of sharing and caring through empathy, cause you have already risen beyond your self limits, you have risen above living a caged and prisoned life of negative emotions of fear, worry, anxiety and constant desire of having and owning, and you have risen above all this to attain a new burst of energy and a new source of power and balance through inner peace. I strongly believe if our societies start living and functioning in a naturally worry-free, tension free, anger and hatred free life and start cultivating emotions of love, joy and most importantly EMPATHY into their system, this world would automatically turn into a healthier and happier place with less cases of violence, depression, suicides, homicides, physical abuse, thefts, robberies, etc. In our Pursuit of material wealth, we have lost our sense of INNER PEACE and the virtues of Patience and tolerance. But it denitely isnt going to be easy. We are quite used to the dear anger and hatred as means for success and getting things done. How is the society going to observe and withstand a sudden change in dynamics and still prevail its economic and social growth? How will it get out of its habit of loud and voracious displays of discontent to make a point or seek revenge? Are we as humans intellectually & emotionally equipped to personify a rational and balanced approach towards achieving a more balanced and peaceful social order? Can we register it into our consciousness that Empathy is the way, amongst other virtues? Is there readiness to adopt these virtues? Who and How will this awareness be created and spread amongst the masses? I believe it all depends on the Leadership. I believe humanity needs and deserve morally Empathic leaders, more than just emotionally empathic individuals. By empathy & emotional awareness, I do not mean to provoke a new age of emotional guilt and emotional burden, forgive me. That is clearly not my agenda here. And I do believe, if I am to play the devils advocate, that a society so strongly marching forward suo moto agenda of Empathy, will inarguably attract many situations of emotional manipulation, guilt and misuse of peoples trust. But that is argumentative. Humans created arms and ammunitions for security and to safeguard, and then it started being used for terrorism and or to show global superiority. We still didnt stop producing arms and ammunitions,

EMPATHY LIVING 7 July 2011

we didnt reject the idea of nuclear development. We never considered giving a thought how a teenager got his hands on deadly weapons causing mass murders at school? On an individual level, I believe, empathy can be practiced with self-responsibility, taking ones own responsibility to dierentiate between needs, desires and greed, to achieve balance and inner peace. On a broader platform, as far as empathy being a social order, I think we need morally empathic leaders in every strata of the society. Be it religion, politics, legal system, schools, colleges, businesses, corporations, etc. leaders across various stratas need to cultivate and take some kind of social responsibility of dissuade projection of negative emotions and encourage a more civilized, calm and happy social order. Leaders most certainly need to learn Empathy, to understand the state of others, if they are to eectively lead a more happy and content society. Parents, I believe will play exemplary roles-models in their childrens lives, if they were to lead with example. Likewise, teachers, bosses, holy men, bureaucrats can all self-discipline themselves to eectively create an environment of calm-assertiveness, greater acceptance, and taking responsibility of those under their wing. if each individual takes the responsibility of themselves and one another, leaders take responsibility of Eective Leadership, and organizations and authorities take responsibility in their governance, slowly and steadily, Empathy can be spread quite eectively, and soon before we realize a more calm-assertive social environment, lled with joy, love and happiness can become a reality.

- BY JATIN CHHEDA.