I recently had a conversation with a reader.
One of the things I love about this blog is that I get to meet some amazing and brilliant people who can challenge me on ideas and add to existing thoughts. How lucky I am to have all of you in my life.
I also want to make an initial, “secondary” point in this post. If you love everything I write, something is probably wrong. The best-case scenario is that you like most of what I write and disagree with some of it. This makes sure that we’re both being honest and challenging ourselves. It means we don’t get stuck in an echo chamber of B.S. This is actually really important in my opinion.
I’m not trying to create a fan club—I’m trying to create a network of colleagues.
Anyway, there were a few things that stood out in our conversation but I can’t write about all of them in one post. For today, I wanted to highlight the idea of empathy through the old platitude “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.”
If we just walked a mile in someone else’s shoes, we’d understand them and we’d be able to empathize with their situation. I think, off the cuff, most of us would agree with this idea.
But Dave said something interesting next.
“A mile is not enough.”
It was one of those moments where, as soon as someone calls it out, you realize how wrong you were before. A mile was never enough. I can’t illustrate the true depth of the experience, and for so many experiences, it’s that depth that amplifies significance.
If you’re white, a mile isn’t enough to understand what life is like if you’re black. If you’re a male, a mile isn’t enough to appreciate what life is like if you’re a woman. If you’re straight, a mile doesn’t explain the depth of what life is like if you’re gay or queer.
It keeps going.
If you’re not poor (you don’t have to be rich), a mile can’t show you the never-ending, futile struggle of trying to get out of poverty. If you’ve never gone to bed hungry, you just can’t understand the pain of it happening night after night. If you’ve never lost your home, you just can’t understand the long-term shame and financial struggle.
For so many important things, a mile just isn’t enough to communicate the depth of someone else’s suffering.
I’m not asking you to keep the shoes on longer, that’s impossible. I’m not even asking you to imagine what life might be like. I’m asking you to understand that none of us will ever truly understand. I’m asking you to make decisions in your life, every day, that reflect that ignorance. I’m asking you to recognize your position in the world, wherever it is.
This applies to your life and it applies to your work because there’s actually no real separation.
I think this impossible task helps us see just how unprepared we are to understand others, and I hope it helps you reach further to discover someone else’s pain and not pretend you actually understand it.