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| "Dancer Putting on Her Slipper" by Edgar Degas (1896) |
Have you ever had the experience of "walking in the other side's shoes"?
Are their any particular "shoes" you think more people who have the experience of walking in?
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Kinky Boots (10.6)
Have you ever had the experience of "walking in the other side's shoes"?
Are their any particular "shoes" you think more people who have the experience of walking in?
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"Walking in someone else's shoes" is undoubtedly the best way to understand them. I have experienced a lot of conflicts/misunderstandings, both from my side and the other party's side, and what it has taken to resolve those conflicts (as they were the result of completely differing backgrounds and experiences trying to get along and understand each other) is each side humbling themselves and putting themselves into the other's shoes--their background, their past and present circumstances, the way they process things, etc. One just has to take a moment to try and imagine...what would I do in that situation? How would I respond? The answers to those questions are often very convicting, as we often can conclude that we would do the same thing we have been angry at someone else for doing. We just couldn't understand why they did it until we put ourselves there, too!
ReplyDeleteI don't think there are more of any one "shoe" than another...there are so many different people in the world, and each one comes from slightly differing backgrounds, with slightly differing circumstances. The combinations are almost endless. Even though there are a lot of similar "shoes", there are no two exactly alike, thus there is no "shoe majority".
I haven't done this yet, but one day I hope to participate in a box community where those who are fortunate enough to have homes, live in boxes for a night and see what it is like to be homeless. So often homeless people are looked down upon and not given a second thought, and I think that would be the perfect way to see what it’s like to “walk in their shoes”. I did get the opportunity one night with my father (who is a police officer) to visit a tent community just outside of Bricktown in a lightly wooded area. I was on a ride along with him trying to see if any of the people in the area had seen the suspect we were looking for. The community was near a sewage pipe, so naturally the smell was terrible, but strangely enough no one living there seemed to mind. They were all very nice and helpful and nothing like I’d expected walking in there. The branches of the low-hanging trees were strung with tattered blankets and flattened boxes were layed under the people so that they weren’t sleeping on the dirt. It was a very eye-opening experience for me into how difficult and uncomfortable these people’s lives really are.
ReplyDelete-Alexa Engles
You can never fully understand a person or their feelings unless you have gone through the same thing that they have. Even so, situations affect everyone differently. I had always seen on the news about tornado horror stories and people losing their loved ones and possessions in them. This is expected when you live in Oklahoma of course. I never thought it would happen to me, but I continued to say to myself, "I can't imagine going through that." Well, now I can. I went through one and lost everything except my family, thank goodness. What I realized soon after the fact was that at that moment, I was homeless. Sure I had places to go and people who could help my family and me, but we were homeless. Other smaller instances have happened when I have been told, "You don't know what it's like to feel depressed and alone," or "You will never understand until you have kids of your own." I have experienced the first, but I still have the second to look forward to.
ReplyDeleteI have experienced walking in the other sides shoes both in the workplace and in a personal setting and I must say that it was eye opening and it would benefit more people to do it. It opens your eyes to the stresses of your bosses job when you are the one responsible for everybody else’s mistakes and though I’d never admit it to her I appreciate what my wife does more when she isn’t around to do it for me. And those are the shoes I think should be filled more often. Many relationships fail because one of the partners doesn’t feel appreciated for everything they do and it would possibly save a relationship if the other person was willing to walk in their spouses shoes and see what exactly it is that is causing the problems with the relationship. The trouble is that most people are stubborn and don’t want to walk in another person’s.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey Johnson