Time and again, life poses questions. Sometimes, if you are
lucky enough, the questions are simple. The answers are obvious. The choices
are crystal clear. More often, the questions are not so easy. Life has a way of
screening difficult questions one after the other. Just like one of those exams
that increase the difficulty level with each correctly answered question, so
goes with life. It presents a tough time and simultaneously provides the
courage to deal with it. However, just when you have gathered the pieces and begin
to feel that the tough phase is over, more daunting questions seem to surface.
That’s the vicious circle called “Life”.
Interestingly, the questions posed to us seem to be more
difficult, pressing, stressful and draining than the ones posed to others. We
peak into each other’s lives to ascertain the difficulty level of their
questions, and almost always jump to the conclusion that our questions are more
strenuous than theirs. The burdensome choices. The awkward answers. The adverse
circumstances. All seem to be more hostile in our own life. The other lives
also seem to be going through tough times, but everything seems to be under
control. At least from the outside. In contrast, our life seems to have been struck
by a hurricane that refuses to leave. That’s what happens most of the time. We
fail to relate to other’s troubled lives because we have so much to deal with
in our own life.
Yet, there are times when the trouble in someone else’s
voice is enough to initiate a sea of emotions within us. Have you ever felt a
lump forming in your throat just imagining a loved one (even though miles away,
geographically) in distress? Has the thought of someone dear being in grief
made you so sick that your own troubles ceased to bother you anymore? Have you
found yourself drowning in depression because of an emotional loss that did not
happen to you, but to someone you cannot imagine losing?
Yes, these are the moments when you reach the levels of
empathy that can possibly be reached by your soul. In these flashes, we do not
need to push ourselves to feel the way another human is feeling. It just
happens. Even to such extents at times, that you cannot stop feeling all the
bad emotions; that have nothing to do with you at all; just because another
human is going through all those emotions. So how come empathy seems to come so
effortlessly to us in some instants, and just seems to touch-and-go in other?!
Possibly, most of us are capable of limited empathy only.
Probably, we are only moved by the troubles and struggles of a few. We do get
disturbed by the sight of a disabled man who was begging on the street, or a two
year old who was raped, or an entire country that was dismantled by an
earthquake. But the disturbance seems to have a very short life. It leaves. Soon.
Very soon. Conversely, when we find our best friend going through an emotional
loss, or a sibling who fails to achieve the dream of their life by an inch, or
a spouse who has a strained relationship with their parent, we just can’t help
but feel for them. We don’t just stand with them. We become who they are. We go
through what they are going through. We become as exhausted as they are. And
with time, we even covet the healing that we intend to provide them. That is
empathy too. But that’s the limited empathy that we possess. That’s the reason
we are not always able to relate to each other’s difficulties. That’s why we
always find the questions in their lives easier. Maybe that’s why the grass
always looks greener on the other side.
So would it take make our lives easier if we could enhance
the compass of our empathy? Would it make us better human beings? Would it even
be possible to do so? Is it something that we are simply born with? Or is it
something that we inculcate as our hearts entangle with other hearts? Did
Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul or Florence Nightingale deliberately widen
their empathy circles to include everyone around? Don’t know. Can’t say.
Probably these too are some of those questions. The ones with no clear
answers..
