Standing in someone else’s shoes

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”

This video was e-mailed to me by a lady surgeon I recently met. She knows how worried I am and wanted to reassure me that I am not alone and that she understands. For my part, I got something else out of it too: the next time I feel slighted by someone else's actions and choose to criticize, snap at them or curse them under my breath, I should instead remember that I know nothing-to-little about that other person and all that he/she is probably enduring. None of us knows what goes on in other people's lives, whatever hardships they are experiencing. Life is a constant whirlwind of joy and heartache; we need to be grateful for the former and learn to accept the latter with strength, dignity and empathy.

Empathy has nothing to do with pity or charity and everything to do with tolerance and solidarity. It also helps tremendously to maintain a cool head throughout any (and every) ordeal we may be experiencing. I see myself in one of the cases depicted in the above video.