How to practice empathy.

I'm interested in people. 

We often get so hung up on our own problems, our own lives, our own trials, that we forget other people are doing it too. 

The other day, I was walking through Rendezvous in between classes. I was on the 3rd floor and I went to the window and I watched as peopled walked by. It was in that moment that I became curious. No one lives a happy, wonderful life all the time. Every person has at least one thing they can think of as the worst thing they've ever gone through. And wouldn't that be so fascinating to hear about?

So tonight, I searched on google for "the hardest thing I've ever gone though."

I found a good website and began reading all these posts about hard things. Some women talked about miscarrying. Many people talked about someone close to them dying. There was a lot of talk about depression. But one in particular stuck out to me. It was a woman who wasn't allowed custody of her children. She described how it felt not being able to even have contact with them. She didn't explain why, just how it felt. And I realized something about myself. When I meet someone who talks about not being allowed custody of their children, I usually just think they deserve it, and then don't think about it anymore. There must be a reason they don't have custody, and its their own fault. 

But as I read about how this woman was feeling, I realized it didn't matter what she had done. She was in pain. That's all that matters. 

I wish everyone thought like this, all the time. We tend to feel bad for our friends, because we can see their pain usually, but when it comes to strangers, we avoid it. We don't see their side. And if we do see there side, and their side is wrong, then we don't feel bad for them. When we should. Because it doesn't matter what someone has done. It doesn't matter if this woman had been doing drugs for her whole life and thats why she couldn't have her children. All that matters is  how we all feel.