However, what if this was used for an entirely opposite situation? What if it was used to explain or describe something that is not an insult but a compliment?
Before going into it, I would like to first talk about something else. Have you ever experience immense sorrow through reading words of someone else's writing? Have you experience euphoria through a picture of someone having fun?
Empathy. According to Mr. G (Google), empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Some people have greater empathy compared with others. Some can truly empathise with someone else's predicament and feel the difficulty that they are going true.
This ability can be most seen in helping professions. Counsellors, therapists, doctors and even teachers. To be truly successful in these professions require a great deal of compassion and empathising towards however they are trying to help. To know that children don't like bitter tastes and hence giving a less bitter medicine but of equal effectiveness to a sick children, listening and understanding the issues of a married couple is going through and also to understand the pressure that students are going through due to the expectations of them to excel. All of these require great deal of care from the doctor, counsellor or teacher. Flowing out from all these understanding and patience in hearing their ordeal will tremendously aid them in their career.
Of course, I'm not here to talk about the secret to success of helping professions. What I'm here to talk about is the phrase "takes one to know one." Why are successful counsellors able to excel in helping broken relationships? Chances are they were once victims in a broken relationship. Why would teachers know the sufferings of their students? Because they were once students and know the different source of pressure and the impact it can have on them.
It is difficult to empathise with the difficulties of others when we ourselves have not experience something similar. Ask a rich person what would it be like to live a life of poverty and he might be able to conjure out a textbook answer; similarly, asking someone who is poor about what is it like to live with a 6-figure salary and he can only tell of things that are only in his wildest imagination. Of course, some imagination are more realistic than others and it will help in empathising with someone else's suffering but imagination can only bring us so far.
Only those who have felt out of place can be emphatic for those who can't find their fit in the world. Only those who once felt like they are a defect of God's creation who can know the sufferings of those who feels like a mistake in the "MANufacturing" process.
A sad but true fact is that: Only the outcasts can see the people who are unseen.
A sad but true fact is that: Only the outcasts can see the people who are unseen.
