Tossing Empathy Aside Has Caused Great Pain And Zero Gain

“Each person you meet

is an aspect of yourself,

clamoring for love.”

— Eric Micha’el Leventhal

It’s been two years since a virus that would later take the name Covid-19 popped up from nowhere and ravaged many lives and businesses. It exposed our vulnerabilities, halted almost every human movement, and forced us into our homes for months.

Before now, we focused only on ourselves. We followed a trend that engendered us to live a life that leaves gaps all around us. Living this way shifted our focus from getting only the things we needed to amassing unneeded possessions and pursuing unnecessary ambitions that drag us down.

We tossed empathy aside and trampled on it as we go about our lives each day. Becoming like those we admire or even better than, and getting accepted became a sought-after goal for many individuals that thinks living this way is right. They find it to be vacuously thrilling and fulfilling.

We rode roughshod on each other without showing compassion or contrite feeling. As a result, showing care and rendering selfless support to one another becomes an exotic venture only a few still consider investing in.

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The Loss Of Connection And Empathy.

“One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.” — Shannon L. Alder

A cursory look around us reveals one thing. It shows that though we’re close to each other, our attention is almost always elsewhere. This means that your presence as a friend, dad, mother, sibling, etc might have been recording absent due to a lack of connection.

This has become the reality of many individuals that allowed other things to steal their attention. The lack of attention is responsible for the gaps around us. And it’s from these gaps that the lack of empathy and other things that combine to make life more challenging and less enjoyable spring up from.

Most people can‘t recall the last time they heard the word empathy because it’s barely spoken and rarely practiced. We allow unimportant things to take our attention. away. We talk a lot about societal ills like that alone would end or mitigate it. We forget the collapse of empathy, something that connects us deeper to one another and we are doing little to mend it.

There are other things that we also need in life. Things that give us meaning and allow us to feel like a human. Things that bring us peace, and long-lasting joy. We can find these things by channeling our attention rightly so we can connect and be present in the lives of those around us.

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We’re Now Stacked In a Tight Corner Where Trust is Non-existent.

“The only time you look in your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have as much as them.” — Louis C.K.

Even after knowing that there’s nothing to win here, yet we keep seeing each other as rivals in a race that would produce a winner someday. We entrenched a lifestyle and a culture that has no place for empathy, love, and equality. One that’s coated with unhealthy competition and insatiable desire for unnecessary attention and approval.

We cry over worsening issues, but come the next day, everyone is already on the move. We’d rather complain when it reoccurs than make a real and collective effort to ameliorate or end it. Though we know the spot where our ache lies, we allow the pain to linger because we have to keep racing forward even though we might run into a self erected brick wall someday.

We take no concrete action to address societal challenges because we believe our chances of winning the race will be hampered if we pause, and adopt an approach that would bring about a lasting change.

This is how we get to where we are today. Haplessly stacked in a tight corner where trust is almost non-existent due to years of accepting and living a lifestyle that enthroned avarice, hate, and discrimination.

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You’re Not Here to Win, But Live.

“It’s not so much the journey that’s important; as is the way that we treat those we encounter and those around us, along the way.” — Jeremy Aldana

You should never think of how to outrun or outperform anyone because life isn’t a race that would produce a winner someday.

Rather life is a journey you’d be joyful for being a partaker because you helped others to enjoy their journey in life. It’s a race you run without having to push others down and stamp indelible marks of pain on their bodies.

Life isn’t about who’s going to win or who's going to be the best. It’s about who’s living rewarding and enjoyably. It’s about who‘s supporting others to make their journey more memorable and less challenging. It’s about finding your path, illuminating it, and staying on it steadfastly so your light can help others locate their path.

You’re not here to win but to live. Living means winning some strikes and losing many. It means owning your shortcomings and striving each day to live above them. It means supporting others so you can derive the rare joy that emanates from helping a fellow human.

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Conclusion

“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.” — Joseph Fort Newton

Money is essential in our lives, without it, life will be miserable. But you should make a distinction between what money can do for you — and what it can’t. Without drawing a line, you might end up living a life that’s filled with empty satisfaction from material things, but devoid of things that money can’t buy. Like connection, joy, and peace of mind.

The gaps around us have made it imperative to inculcate empathy and incorporate it into our lifestyles. This is so because continuing on the perilous path of amassing wealth at the expense of others, and the planet would lead to pernicious consequences that would spare no one.

Strengthening connections should be everyone’s main focus. And this can be achieved by returning to where empathy exists richly; where it’s widely understood and practiced, so we can embrace equality, acknowledge and appreciate the importance of every human.

It’s not sustainable to be on the other side where we only focus on ourselves. Empathy would allow us to understand that we’re here to love, share and collaborate to sustain our existence in a world that we’ve severely damaged.

If you’ve tossed empathy aside, go ahead and pick it up, and hold it firmly for we’re in great need of it. Strive to live rewardingly and not like someone that thinks and lives like there’s a trophy to win. Rebuild your connections by being present in the lives of people around you.

This story was previously published on Medium by the same author.