Over the last three years I have chosen to make a very deliberate and conscious effort to feel EMPATHY and it has made my life immeasurably both better and more difficult.

When I began on my empathy project, I noticed that my frustration levels decreased in leaps and bounds, but my sympathy levels multiplied to an area where they are sometimes unbearable.

I’m trying to figure out if this is because I’m a teacher, because I’m a leader, because I’m getting older… or something else…

In the words of Inigo Montoya… “You kill my father, prepare to…”  oh, wait… wrong quote… what I meant was “Let me ‘splain…no, there is too much… let me sum up.”

So the beginnings:  I work in a high school.  I am the English department chair which really just means that I am a funnel.  I get information and then I give it to the group.  I have no ACTUAL power.  I am solely our representative.  However, I work in a department comprised of 12 other women, 2 coaches, and 1 dude…  And I learned REALLY fast that they ALL respond to every bit of new information that they get in entirely different ways.  Teachers are ALL control freaks; otherwise, they wouldn’t be teachers.  In the beginning, I would be incredibly frustrated by the 15 different reactions to the same situation.  Then, they’d break into their little cliques…find the people who agreed most closely with their reaction… and gang up on me.

It all felt very personal.  I was just the funnel after all.  But, turns out, I’m a girl, too… so then I was left looking for someone to SYMPATHIZE with me.  Feel bad for me…  but there was no one.  Just by virtue of some silly title and a whopping $200 a month (before taxes) I was no longer one of them…  so…  that wasn’t going to work.

Instead, I started working on empathy.  I started to really think about “why.”  Why is this person reacting the way they are?  What in their personality makes them feel this way?  What is the root of the problem?  It doesn’t matter that I felt bad that they were upset until I tried to think about the PERSON and what caused that reaction.  I was no longer frustrated when I realized that their reaction was caused by something else in their general make up… they were an introvert… or this one project meant something in particular to them, or it was very difficult for them to handle change… or their principles were being compromised

and often if I addressed THEIR problem and how THEY felt, it went much better than simply saying, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”  and I really DID understand WHY they felt… not just HOW they felt… and it was fine that I didn’t feel the same way because I didn’t have to.

I have zero need to make other people think and feel the way that I do.  I think once upon a time I did. Don’t get me wrong… I STILL think the way I think and feel is usually the RIGHT way… and I will tell others what I feel and why… but if they don’t feel the same way, that’s okay.  They have reasons for their beliefs, too…and I’d rather figure out what their reasons are than try to force them to believe mine. After all, maybe they have better reasons for their beliefs than I do.

This empathy project has bled over into ever aspect of my life.  I think I’ve become a better friend because of it.  I really care why my friends feel the way that they do.  Whether it’s just “venting” or if it’s their real, true soul bearing, I care.  I want to know and understand why they feel the things that they feel.  I am no longer waiting for my turn to speak… or even worse, to prove them wrong.  I just want to realize what’s going on with them.

It is interesting how many people bristle as soon as you question their beliefs… I also empathize with their “prickliness.”  If they’re not quite sure why they believe what they do… they get hostile.  It happens MUCH more with adults than with kids, interestingly enough.  Kids are still figuring out their beliefs, so they know why they believe what they do; and if you start questioning them, more often than not, they want to know YOUR beliefs.  It’s pretty cool, actually.  It could be just because I’m a teacher, however, and they put me on some sort of pseudo pedestal.  I do warn them time and time again that I am not a life expert… I am not some sage on the stage… and just because I have the title of “teacher” does not make my advice any more valuable.  (Very scary thing being a teacher… I’ve blogged about that before…)

But that’s different than what I’m talking about here…

So that’s all the GOOD in the empathy project… and how it has helped me become a better leader, better teacher, and better friend…  Now for the BAD…

I guess I can just use my example… Robin Williams.  I literally can’t type his name without crying again.  Oh my gosh, that poor man.  His WHOLE life in so much agonizing pain and shame.  He tried absolutely everything.  He tried self medication, he tried counseling, he tried real medication… but the illness in his head would not let up.  He had to go through life with constant, crippling, anxiety and depression… where he couldn’t be proactive he could only react because he was in constant pain.  He tried so hard to make the world a beautiful place for everyone else while he was only tortured himself.

The empathy project is dangerous… because the more you work at it… the better you get at it.  And it is so far reaching…  because if we continue on the Robin Williams track you have the people who call him our for being a quitter.  For having everything and not trying hard enough… and then you are looking into THEIR heads… What are they struggling with that makes them feel so much anger toward another human being for taking his own life?  What’s inside them that causes them to feel the need to write someone off entirely  because they made one mistake???

See what I mean?  There’s no end to it…  I’m thinking of police officers trying right now so hard to stand up for their profession… handing out gift cards and cash and reminding us that they’re there to serve and protect… and I’m thinking of Black mothers warning all of their sons when they go outside that there’s a target on their back.  I think of Muslims who truly are against the radicals and terrorists… and t think of the terrorists, too…and wonder if they really feel that level of hatred and what drives them…

In the end, the empathy project is good for me…  It has made me a better human being for sure…

…but I wonder… is this something everyone goes through?  Is it for all or just a few?  Does everyone look at different views?

“Stop rhyming, I mean it.”

“Does anybody want a peanut?”