The purpose of this blog is to reflect on some of my experiences in life where I find myself getting frustrated with the actions of others, flipping the script, and then evaluating the way I feel an how I might act in similar circumstances. I am using this as a tool for developing my own empathy for others, but there is a glimmer of hope in me, that it might serve to help others as well. Our communities, states, and the United States of America needs more empathy and less judgment. People allow the political and social climate to be what it is and I believe we can also work together to make it better. There is a quote that has resonated with me and it goes back to a Stephen Covey book where one of his big ideas is: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." More recently, my wife, best friend, and eternal flame put up a sign in our home with the following quote on it: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." Combining those quotes and a sense of social justice that has come over me are the motivations to write this blog.
I consider myself an historian. I’ve
earned both a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Arts in History. While a love of history began as a teenager with a study of World War II, it has blossomed into an interest in people; what makes them think and act as they did? I now value new perspectives and challenging my own biases, though admittedly that is innately difficult. Through my study of history and now teaching it year in and year out, I have learned
to see the world through many different lenses and that has opened my world to
a realization of how small and relatively insignificant my place is in the
scope of the world’s life. My education has helped me see the blessings and opportunities
of my life as compared with others, and that has dramatically changed how I
understand other people. I have learned that I literally know nothing about the
successes and failures of other people and how those successes and failures shape
them; I know nothing of the multitude of other shaping phenomena in their
lives.
In spite of not knowing to much about others, I find that I am too quick to judge based on the
smallest interaction – be that whether I see them in a positive or negative
light. Why do I do that? What causes me to be so quick to judge and so rash in
that judgment when I am basing it off the most minute details and circumstances of their life. When I
take the time to reflect on my own internal biases, I usually find that I am
way off base and that I need a course correction.
