Jim, a 42-year old engineer was teaching his eight-year-old son how to fly a radio-controlled airplane. As
airplane was taking off, Jim instructed his son to push control stick on radio to right. He did and airplane turned to right.
This was repeated several more times until airplane turned full circle toward son, ready to land. “Push stick to right,” said Jim. This time, however, plane turned left. “Push stick left,” Jim said. Now plane turned right, as if it suddenly had a mind of its own.
“I’m confused,” said son. “How do I know which way to push stick when plane behaves differently depending on if it’s flying away from me or toward me?”
“It’s simple,” said Jim. “Simply imagine you’re in plane and push stick accordingly.” This cured problem.
What a great lesson in empathy – ability to experience world from another perspective, often perspective of another person.
As an anonymous English author wrote: “To empathize is to see with eyes of another, to hear with ears of another, and to feel with heart of another.”
Why is empathy important? The real world bottom line is that lack of empathy leads to poor communication and a failing to understand others. Lack of empathy leads to all sorts of problems in our world. Nations go to war, people are killed, couples divorce – all for a lack of empathy and understanding.
It is natural to become angry when frustrated or irritated with people who do or say things at variance with our worldview.
To manage anger, it often helps to see our anger as a combination of their behavior and our lack of empathy. While we cannot control other’s thoughts, feelings or behaviors, we most certainly can increase our empathy skills.
To control our anger with increased empathy, three basic skills are required: listening, self-awareness and acceptance.
Empathic listening is a type of listening that goes further than ordinary listening. This type of listening uses another person’s point of view to see world as others see it. It provides a higher level of understanding of how others feel.
