empathy

“For you see, when us people who know run into each other that's an event. It almost never happens. Sometimes we meet each other and neither guesses that the other is one who knows. That's a bad thing. It's happened to me a lot of times. But you see there are so few of us.”  - Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter


One of my favorite books.  And makes me think of empathy.  Putting one in another's shoes, so to speak.  Or, quite literally, knowing what another's shoes are like.  This is even more rare and difficult.  

Don't we all muddle through life thinking "you don't know how it feels"......?  I think we do...disagree or not, it's how I feel.  And maybe we do things that make us survive a moment, whether anybody else thinks it's needed or not.  And a definition of a moment is dependent on the person who is experiencing the moment.  

A friend told me once, and these were not her words, but quoted ones, "Be kinder than necessary because everybody is fighting some kind of battle".  Truer words have never been spoken.  

Open your hearts, feel each other's needs.  I believe that humanity needs this, and that we don't all cry out the same way.   Listen...and love.  My hope for all of my family & friends is years of happiness, no need to cry out...but when we do...listen and love.