We have all tried to get into someone else’s shoes. How many times have we found a perfect fit of style and size in someone else’s shoe rack? Not too many, I bet! Even if we find, how many times have we thought it looked the same on our feet? Frankly, I have not been very successful in finding the exact right shoes in another person’s shoe rack, no matter how long I spend admiring their shoe collection.

Oops, wait! This is not what I was supposed to be writing about. See, shoes always distract me! No matter what I get into the store for, I find myself wandering through the shoe aisles, looking at all the shoes that I know I will never buy. I have to literally drag myself out and focus on what I actually need to buy from that store.

Let me focus on what I actually want to write about. The idiom – try putting yourself into someone else’s shoes, is a very commonly used one. It means – to imagine yourself in the circumstances or situations that another person is in. When you imagine yourself in that position, the expectation is that you will understand what the other person experiences. That understanding is supposed to help restrain you from judging or being critical of the other person’s actions. This is the first step towards developing an empathetic attitude towards the other person.

Looking at the genesis of this idiom, it can be found that the full idiom is: Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. It is indeed a reminder to practice empathy. It is a Native American aphorism. Mary T. Lathrap published a poem in 1895, replacing the word shoes with moccasins. The original title of the poem was Judge Softly, later titled Walk a Mile in His Moccasins. It is a beautiful poem and the first 4 lines go like this:

Judge Softly
“Pray, don’t find fault with the man that limps,
Or stumbles along the road.
Unless you have worn the moccasins he wears,
Or stumbled beneath the same load.

My understanding and experience of this idiom is as follows:

Diversity in thoughts is our biggest strength. And as we have seen earlier, our biggest weakness too. No two people think alike and hence no two people can feel alike. There could be similarities but they will not be the same. So being considerate and empathetic is something we all have to work consciously on. It is okay if we do not completely understand what the other person feels. It is however important to not judge him/ her for feeling a certain way.

What one person comprehends or feels is the sum total of a lot of variables. The exact same circumstance can give rise to different reactions from two different people. Hence, we cannot expect a person who is imagining to be in another person’s place to completely understand what that person feels.

Can a man ever wear a woman’s shoes and walk for a mile and understand what it is to be a woman? I do not want anyone to read the above sentence and comprehend it as ” Oh, do men know how difficult it is to be a woman”! No, because I am a woman. and I know it is pretty awesome to be a woman. What I intend to say is that one gender cannot fully understand what it feels like to be born as another gender. A woman also can never fully understand what a man feels.

People from different genders, different cultures, different upbringings or different circumstances can never fully understand what it is to be in the other person’s place. And, that is completely Okay. This is why there is so much stress on building empathy. Be it at the workplace, or at home, it is always good to have empathetic people around.

Meaning Of Empathy

Did you know that the ‘meaning of empathy’ and ‘the difference between sympathy and empathy ‘ are two very commonly searched terms on Google? Empathy is about understanding another person’s point of view. To try and feel as close as that person is currently feeling and to tell them you understand.

The simplest answer for the difference between sympathy and empathy that I found is this:
Sympathy is to see someone in a deep hole, but remain on higher ground and talk to them from above. Empathy is however to get into the hole and sit with them. Then, when they are ready, help them get out.
Sympathy is to try to put a silver lining on another person’s cloud/situation. Empathy is however to acknowledge the presence of that cloud.

Empathy is an interpersonal skill that can be developed. It requires imagination, understanding, and awareness to practice empathy. According to renowned psychologists, Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman, empathy can be of three types–
perspective-taking or cognitive empathy where you know what the other person feels.
emotional empathy where you can emotionally and physically feel what the other person feels.
compassionate empathy when you understand another person’s predicament, feel their pain, and also help them out when needed.

However, someone else’s shoes will always be someone else’s shoes. Just like when I wear another person’s shoes, those shoes can look different from how they looked on the other person, even when I imagine myself to be in another person’s situation, it will be colored in the colors of my imagination. Empathy is the only attribute that can help us handle it.

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

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