Hi,
I would like to explain on the term "to put yourself in another person's shoes" and thinking about what personal qualities that are needed to see things as someone else does.
I think that putting oneself in another person's shoes is very important in life, as it can help to reduce the number of quarrels in the world. When we put ourselves in another person's shoes, it means that we take a moment to think about the other party's situation and try to come up with a rationale of why he/she is behaving like that. For example, if I am doing a project with Person A and I contribute almost everything while Person A does nothing, I should try to understand his situation before carrying out an action towards him. Perhaps Person A is struggling with a loss of a family member and does not have the time or mood to do the project. Therefore, it is quite important to put oneself in another person's shoes so that we can think before we act and can hence come up with a more righteous and accurate judgement of a person. This will also enable us to prevent certain arguments from happening.
However, putting oneself in another person's shoes in not as easy as think. In order to carry out this action, we need to learn to possess certain characteristics. One such characteristic is sensitivity. We need to be sensitive to one another's feelings so as not to provoke their feelings and understand them better. We also need to be very patient and take time to listen to what the other person has to say. Objectiveness and fairness are also key qualities needed to ensure that we can have an unbiased view of the whole picture. Last but not least, I believe that we have to be very understanding and forgiving, because it is the key to maintaining a good, peaceful relationship with the other party by trying to understand that his/her way of life might be different from ours.
In conclusion, I think that I should learn from the character Atticus in the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" because he is always able to put himself in other people's shoes, instilling great respect in me for him. I hope that everyone in the world will be able to do this simple action so that the world will become a happier place to live in.
Nathanael
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Hi Nathanael,
ReplyDeleteIn your blog post, you mentioned that "we need to be sensitive to one another's feelings so as not to provoke their feelings and understand them better".
I agree that we need to be sensitive to one another's feelings, but I feel that the purpose of being sensitive is to be able to empathise with the individual. This is to allow us to better understand why he/she behaves in a specific way that he/she does.
Therefore, in my opinion, sensitivity is not to prevent provocation of the individual, but to cultivate empathy for the individual.
To sum it all up, I also feel that you should include "empathy" as one of the characteristics required to put oneself into other people's shoes.
Best Regards,
Nathan :)
Yo Nat,
ReplyDeleteActually what Nathan said was what I thought about while reading your post. When you use the phrase,'put yourself in someone's shoes,' you normally use it when that someone is experiencing some trouble in life. So what people is actually wanting you to do when they tell you that phrase is that you should empathise that someone who is experiencing trouble in life.
You're right. It is much harder than it seems to completely put yourself into someone's shoes. It's all up to experience. Let's just say something happened to you. You told me that I should put myself into your shoes before judging you. But it would be almost impossible for me to feel what you are feeling unless I share the same experience as you. A simple matter to you could be a nightmare to someone else, and that's most probably because you haven't gone through that situation and haven't experienced the trauma I am experiencing. So I think that in life, we should be brave and experience as many things as possible. This further strengthens bonds and understanding.
Shiyao