Epictetus, The Handbook 28: Walk in Their Shoes

 

It is in our power to discover the will of Nature from those matters on which we have no difference of opinion.

For instance, when another man's slave has broken the wine-cup we are very ready to say at once, 'Such things must happen.' Know then that when your own cup is broken, you ought to behave in the same way as when your neighbor's was broken.

Apply the same principle to higher matters. Is another's child or wife dead? Not one of us but would say, 'Such is the lot of man'; but when one's own dies, straightway one cries, 'Alas! Miserable am I!'

 But we ought to remember what our feelings are when we hear it of another.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 26 (tr Matheson)

Reality is hardly subjective, and the world is not what we would wish it to be. Yet we must understand how much our own impressions and judgments, unique to each of us, inform our perception of that reality.

What appears one way to my own experience may well appear quite differently when I see it experienced by another. There’s the rub. It is my responsibility to recognize that the pain or pleasure I may feel is hardly any different than the pain or pleasure another may feel, just because he is the one feeling it.

In a moment of complete despair, I once told the person I love the most that I would be walking away, and that she would be better off without all the baggage I had brought with me. It took some time of honest and humble reflection to realize how heartless I had been. I allowed my own self-pity to cloud my love. How might I feel if she had said that to me? I would immediately throw myself into the arena and fight her fight with her. I would never back away, I would never give up, because that is what it means to love another person.

Now why was I expecting that there was one standard for me, and another for her? Why would I think that I should not act in a way I would hope others would act? Why did I think my own experience was any less powerful than her own?

To think sympathetically, and even empathically, is to put oneself in the position of others, to think and feel like them, even to think and feel with them. We apply different measures, because we think we are somehow special. We aren’t. Everyone is special.

When I was a young pup, I felt like I was constantly going to funerals. Within a few years, two grandparents and two great-grandparents, all very dear to me, passed away. Some people say that children bounce back from loss easily, but that wasn’t true for me. Each one of those losses broke my heart, and that last one, the death of my Nana, my father’s grandmother, hit me the hardest.

I felt so miserable because she passed away over Easter, and I never had the chance to say goodbye to her. My father, quite wisely, had made sure I went to see her often, just to spend my time with her after school. She became like a newfound friend, because she listened to me, and I did my best to listen to her.

At her funeral, I battled through dozens upon dozens of people offering their condolences. I know they meant well, and I hold no grudges. But I quickly became tired of hearing the same tired statements. “She was such a good woman.” “I’m so sorry for your loss.” “You are in my prayers.” “God called her back.”

There was one fellow, and I have absolutely no idea who he was, that simply sat next to me in silence for some time. He put his hand on my shoulder, and when I turned to him, he simply said, “I know.” He squeezed my hand, and went on his way.

Now there was a man of sympathy, and of empathy. He was trying to see it as I saw it.

When my wife and I lost our first child, I was almost moved to violence when one person too many told me that it was all “for the best.” In one sense, this was quite right, because anything thrown at us by Nature and Nature’s God can be turned to good, if only we so choose. But that is hardly what someone who is grieving wants to hear.

I was boiling with anger, until I looked at it differently, another one of those Stoic Turns. Here was another human being, trying to give comfort. That I did not appreciate it as she intended it was entirely on me, not on her. I thought of all the clumsy ways I have tried to offer comfort myself, and I was able that time to say, with all sincerity, “thank you.”

I no longer think it is platitude to say that we should walk in someone else’s shoes.

Written in 5/2007

Image: Altobello Melone, The Road to Emmaus (c. 1516)