Judgment and Empathy

Judging others is a very easy task. Just look at some one's present behavior. Observe it a couple of times and make your judgement. If you are fond of gossip, go and announce the judgement to more people. This way you and your group of friends will have some topic to talk about. 

Empathy on the other hand is quite difficult. When you see some one else's odd behavior, you actually have to go down to their level. Understand their whole situation, at times even their upbringing, their current status, socioeconomic difficulties, their struggles etc.. Then think about their situation.Empathy is so difficult  that it might compel you to help that person you were about to judge. It might cause you to think in different dimensions and it might trigger some unknown feelings of odd humanity in you. People who have empathy and compassion for others get so trapped at times that they even cause difference in the world! 

When you see your new co-worker not smiling at you and making delays on the deadlines, it is easy to think that she is a very rude and careless person. Talking about it with other co-workers during lunch hour is such a great fun! 

But if you fall in the trap of empathy by mistake, you will try and talk to her any way. You will learn about her struggles as a new comer. You might also learn about how difficult it is for her to take care of her aging parents at home and how important it is for her to keep this job to earn some bucks. You will suddenly get a different view point to look at things. You might see a new perspective which you did not even know existed. Even worse, you will feel the urge to help her. You might take some extra time out from your busy office work and might actually start teaching her the tasks necessary to meet deadlines at office. 

When you see those poor children in rugs at traffic lights  while traveling in India, you have already made up your mind that they are extremely rude, most of them are thieves and many are already buying drugs with the money they got after begging. It is easy to think like this and walk away. After all this is not your problem. You have enough on your plate. You have bills to pay, fix a dinner, attend meetings and what not! You can not fix the whole world! 

But then there are those people, I think they must be jobless! Because they try to understand these kids. They try to help them. They go so far that they even start institutions which can provide them with food, shelter and education. Empathy really makes them work hard! 

Judgment and empathy are really the part of a same lake. When you look at the surface, you are developing judging skills. When you are brave enough to go inside the lake, you are empathizing. This will show you the whole new world below the water and guess what, you might discover that you are a good swimmer!