Education and Empathy

There is a very popular Kannada proverb that, when translated, says, 'Travel or read'. Understanding the diversity of our environment, either by reading different stories or experiencing them, educates us to better accept and empathise with people around us.

Among various other philosophies that educate and guide people to live their lives in certain ways, in my opinion, this particular proverb encompasses the essence of knowledge the best. In my experience as a volunteer at various educational facilities, a wide scope of travel and reading helps not just in broadening one's horizon, but also in making better decisions that impact other human beings.

Unfortunately, this requires a lot of disposable resources and there are many talented people in the world who do not get the opportunity to explore their talent in various arenas because of a lack of resources.

Fund-raising is one activity, but the real lack of resource amongst us, today, is a lack of empathy. It stops us from providing the right things to the right people at the right time. Again, this is a vicious cycle of lack of knowledge and empathy that keeps repeating itself over and over again.
Even in large organisations, with access to so much information, a lack of knowledge is very common.

As a trainer and mentor in my previous organisation, I met with many people who had wasted years thinking that there could be nothing they could do to solve their problem, when all they needed was a little education. This could very well translate to me and my lack of knowledge for various things.

What is important, though, is that while a situation cannot be understood with the resources one already has, seeking new possibilities is a must, and this needs a lot of confidence. Let me stop right here or I may go into another tangent of how belief in an object makes it more true than when the object is not known to exist, even if it does.

The point of this whole write-up is that while education is important, the resources to access it is what we as a society must be able to provide for each other.

Life experience without work experience

Heartache bothers us all.

Whenever, and I promise I don't mean this lightly, I feel like I've begun to get attracted to someone, it soon turns out that they've been feeling not so hot towards me or even noticed how I feel. The latter is probably because I'm super insecure and awkward and may be too scared to actually project it.

So, what happens when I see that they don't feel the same or that they do but for someone else? A cycle of jealousy, 'why not me?', self-hate, general hate, self-pity, self deprecation and finally, acceptance of my short-comings runs all over again like a film in a broke film theatre with dying equipment and scenes get stuck.

I'm in 'self-hate' right now. So, to detach myself from the situation and be writing this is quite the challenge but an interesting one at that. Yeah, yeah. There was someone and that did not do too well for me. While I feed the lonely void in my heart with this mindless incessant typing, let me tell you something that I wish someone tells me every time I get into this situation: "It will always suck when you see your goal and find the roadmap, but, you don't have the night lights or the support system to realise the utility of the roadmap to get straight to the goal." This requires both divergence and convergence of thought. In business, like in any aspect of life, one has to back off and really see the big picture.

With the guy I had a crush on, it hurts when I see that it's going elsewhere. So, all I had to do was step back, take a deep breath and actually look at it as a human thing while making a decision to manage the emotional connection while keeping certain emotions in check.