WORLD WE IMAGINE Part 1
I vividly remember the most life altering epiphany I've ever had. I was around 10 years old. I remember a boy in my class telling me I was not allowed to be sad because my life was perfect. I was so confused. My life was very far from perfect. How did he know what my life was like? I thought about it more. I realized that he only saw a specific side of my life that was shown to the public. He didn't know anything about my life that happened behind closed doors. I realized in that moment that we never know what the people around us are going through. Most of the time, we only see what people want us to see. Nobody has a perfect life.
Ever since this, I've lead life with the idea of treating people with kindness. To not judge and make assumptions about people. The idea of listening, like truly listening, to what people have to say. Even the person who seems to have the most perfect life may be struggling with something we have no idea about. This value of empathy and kindness has been my first step in making the world a better place.
There are of course many more steps to be taken. However, a little bit of kindness truly goes such a long way. I feel like these days there is so much talking and not nearly enough listening. If we all could be just a little bit more thoughtful and understanding, we could progress so much faster as a society. I'm still working on what my second step towards making the world a better place should be, but hopefully these assignments will help me find it.
Kate, I really enjoyed reading through your post. personally, I am someone who is a really bad listener. I consistently find myself dozing off or losing my attention span when people start speaking to me for even the most important scenarios. As someone who is aware of this I have told myself consistently that I need to become better at this. I really liked reading through your post because it helped emphasize how big of a problem it is, especially in certain scenarios.
ReplyDeleteKate, this is a great sentiment! It is so important to treat others with kindness, and to never judge a book by its cover. I also wrote about empathy, as I think it is one of the most important human characteristics. No matter where we come from, we are all connected in some way. One way you could implement this in an actionable way is by contributing to your community and encouraging others to repeat good deeds.
ReplyDeleteKate, reading your post acted as a great reminder for my life. If we all treated each other just a bit more kind I think we would live in a much better place. If I needed this reminder, I bet many other people out there also need the same reminder. In the world of technology, maybe an app with daily "Be a Human" reminders could be beneficial for others!
ReplyDeleteHi Kate, I share a similar epiphany as someone said the same about my life specifically my family. Right away I was also shocked because I never considered my family perfect and also I was empathetic someone wished they had this "perfect" family. I think we can start with sharing more transparency in our lives. shifting away from sharing our perfect lives on social media and even in everyday conversation. I'm not sure exactly where you should go with this there are so many options. But it could even be as simple as a social media account promoting this vulnerability and kindness.
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