I went to an EI talk today with a great friend of mine and one word in the talk really struck me - empathy. According to dictionary.com it is "identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives." It is the ability to put yourself in other people's shoes. Now I dare to ask, how many of us actually do that all the time? I try to when I occasionally remember but I often find myself not doing that. I remember CAPP 12 when my teacher told us that people might be ill-tempered because of the certain circumstances they are in which we are unaware of. If that is the case, we may be blaming others for things which we should not be. My ballroom teacher says we always blame our partner for not doing a good job when we are usually the one to blame. Confucius once said "己所不慾,勿施於人" or "Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself." Although not identical, it carries a similar meaning. The idea of being able to empathize not only results in imposing benefits on other people but also onto yourself. Once I start seeing things in other people's perspectives, I am able to mitigate the amount of anger and stress I suffer from the situation. There is someone who I really care about who always complains about everything around them and I used to get very frustrated at the whole situation. Occasionally, I would stand back and think: why is this person acting this way? I try to analyze the reasons behind their actions and then I find myself to be able to calm down a lot. It is indeed a win-win situation.
2 comments:
Just want to add to what you said.
Here's a little story:
I was at a restaurant and a waitress was explicitly giving us bad service. She had a really lousy attitude.
My cousin was like "What the heck was that?!" and getting really pissed off. I was
Me: "Calm down. Maybe she's having a bad day. " (I was thinking along the lines of maybe something happened in her family or she was really stressed about something.)
My Cousin: "Yeah well, she's working right now, so she should treat her customers right."
Turns out we over heard the waitress talking to another, complaining about how she had to serve so many people at a time. And she feels that she shouldn't be assigned so many people at a time.
What I learnt:
No person can make us feel unhappy or angry or less than what we are, other than ourselves. It all depends on how we react to any situation and what our attitude is.
I understand this is easier said than done, but I'm working on it. :)
Also, I should add...I was in a good mood that day (for no particular reason), and that made me see things in a more positive way than usual. I guess my cousin could possibly have had not such a good day, which adds to how we view/react to things. Or my cousin could simply disagree with bad service.
Good words of advice Bonnie!! When I was working at mcd's, I always get a whole bunch of impatient customers and people who just want to screw me over. However, I learned that if your patient enough to serve them, they usually feel your sincerity and cheer up a little bit more (then again there are those who are mean to you everytime...).
So I took that attitude to banana republic, and I find customers are much more appreciative of your efforts to make their day better. I know they usually have been through a rough day, so its good they confide in me to make their night a little bit better!^^ (now I feel like a "duck" by saying that LOL)
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