This is #16 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” Here’s another one that I like a lot.
I can’t remember when it was and I can’t remember who said it but the idea they expressed has served me well every time I’ve allowed my (mostly) “1st world problems” to get me down.
It goes like this: imagine you are standing in a circle large enough to contain everyone you know. And imagine that everyone standing in that circle is able to toss into the middle of it, for everyone to see, every problem they have.
Take a moment to imagine that.
And then imagine yourself surveying all of it, really seeing it and accepting it for what it is and what it must mean to the person who threw it in there.
Seeing it, the crushing reality of it all, allows us a moment to shake ourselves awake and then, as quickly as we can, grab our own problems back from the pile.
My thought is, let’s skip the circle and the pile and the grabbing back of our own stuff and just go with more empathy.
We’ll have really done something when we can do that.
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