What is empathy?

Danield Goldman, the foremost emotional intelligence protagonist defined empathy as the condition of being attentive to emotional clues, and the showing of sensitivity and compassion to the concerns and needs of others.

In capturing this definition, he used the analogy of a breastfeeding mother who can easily discern when her sucking child is in need of breast-milk, even without the baby making an express demand. He surmised that this is made so simply because the mother was empathic to the needs of the baby. Emphathy is not sympathy. Sympathy or compassion is feelings of pity and sorrow for others. Empathy involves affinity, appreciation, compassion and concord.

In our context, Empathy is understanding that women are physiologically and psychologically different from men. Empathy is understanding that the rich and the poor have different tastes in life. Empathy is understanding that Caucasian and a Negro would interpret life differently. Empathy is understanding that geographical locations, cultures, economic factors, and religions create a divergence of perspectives between two classes of people, the Northerner and the Southerner; the Easterner and the Westerner.

As a doctor, do you understand what it is like to be a patient in an hospital? As a citizen, do you understand that no person or group of persons holds the monopoly of beauty, of intelligence, and of strength and that there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory?

Empathy is understanding that human beings are equally unequal. Empathy is equally understanding that our nation- Nigeria, is presently in trouble and needs urgent salvation that can come only through Nigerians themselves.

Why is empathy important in nigeria today?

It is no hidden truth that Nigeria is lagging behind other countries of the world in major spheres of life; and that we have become an object of monumental derision and ridicule by the international community. What could be the reason for this slide?

The reasons are not farfetched – all that emanates from Nigeria have always been corruption, killings, diseases, wars or war mongering and poverty. While in other climes, technology is growing by limps and bounds, medical scientists making ground breaking discoveries, we in Nigeria are still unable to feed our teeming population with decent meals, losing precious lives every day to preventable diseases such as cholera, measles and malaria. Challenges that other parts of the world overcame in the 1800’s is what we are still battling and grappling with today.

Most worrisome is that the solitary effort in putting our map on the world stage – human relations – is presently under corrosion. Yesteryears, communal living was symptomatic of an African culture and indeed our forte; Unfortunately, today, we are now being taught how to live in peace by the same Western cultures that idolized our sense of fellowship during the grimmest era of our national growth.  And having made a mess of what was a dash to us by God, heaven appears now reluctant to meet Nigerians at our points of needs, unless we show that we are now mature enough to handle people and assume bigger responsibilities.

How many Nigerian political leaders are truly empathic about the situation ordinary Nigerians find themselves in today? As a Southerner, have you ever imagined for once what it feels like to be a Northerner, and vice versa? As a leader, do you truly understand what it means to be a follower, and vice versa? As a rich Nigerian, do you truly understand what it means to be a poor Nigerian? As a man in this nation, do you understand what it means to be a woman in this nation? As an employer do you know what the employee? As an employee, do you know what your employer goes through? As an elected officer, do you understand the expectations of those who handed you the mandate? These questions if properly answered, will help us create solutions to the many problems we are faced with in Nigeria and transform our cosmic consciousness. Franklin Roosevelt once said, “If you treat people rightly, they will treat you rightly 99 percent of the time.”God knows that cultivating close warm hearted feelings for others is the ultimate source of success in life and that is why any nation that fails to integrate itself into a whole bunch is bound to live in shallows and in miseries.

James Hillman a U.S author once said, ”Each thing needs other things—once called ‘the sympathy of all things.’ Attachment is embedded in the soul of things, like an animal magnetism.” Empathy dictates that individually and collectively, we cannot function effectively and efficiently without the help of people different from us. Empathy teaches us that our moment of awakening can come to us at anytime and through any person. Therefore, we must strive to honor all times and all people.

When is empathy needed?

A time like this, when restiveness is the order of the day, when there is disenchantment from every part of the country, is the most ideal time to share and show empathy to those different from us.  Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677), Dutch philosopher and theologian, said, “I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.” This is what empathy is canvassing for.  Kinnock, a British politician, said, “Compassion is not a sloppy, sentimental feeling for people who are underprivileged or sick…it is an absolutely practical belief that, regardless of a person’s background, ability or ability to pay, he should be provided with the best that society has to offer.”  Irrespective of where you are, what you do, where you come from, or what station you are in life, we are all the same human beings; we all seek happiness and try to avoid suffering. Is that not so?

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It is said that Well-empathized children tend to become secure.  Anxious parenting produces anxious children; aloof parenting produces avoidant children who withdraw from emotions and  from others. What manner of youths are we churning out under the present conditions of living? Youths who do not feel empathized by the leadership of the nation would  inevitably take up arms against the country. Because the youths of every nation are the product of the nation.

Acts of empathy make the unbearable bearable. Until we come to the point when we resolve issues not only through our own point of view, but from the point of view, of the other party, God will not send down his wisdom on us to meet the challenges of this nation. We are still repeating the same things that we did yesterday, which brought about the hatred, divisiveness and sectionalism that we witness in this nation today; yet we want a different result. That is an implausible task. Ask Albert Einstein!

Who is to show empathy

It was Albert Schweitzer (1875 – 1965), who once said, “The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.”  We as Nigerians must imbibe the culture of compassion and empathy for one another. We must begin to imagine for once as a Northerner what life would have been as a Southerner. Would I still hold the same fixated opinion as I do presently, if my mother tongue were Ibibio, Ijaw, Edo, Ogoni, Urhobo, etc?  What if I was born and raised in the South would I have still been a muslim?

We should be able to ask ourselves questions. As a political leader, have I shown sufficient empathy to those who elected me? Have I been accountable and responsible enough to those whose mandate I carry? What if I were an electorate, what would my opinion be over the current hardships faced by the commoner be?  What if I were an unemployed graduate? What would be my perception of the leadership of Nigeria?

The best and most effective way to solve any and every problem is to first look at the issues from the perspective of the flip side. That is where real solutions begin from. The solutions to the challenges of this country lie in the hands of Nigerians being creative, and creativity stems from the condition of the heart. The only fence against the world, is a thorough knowledge of it. The defence we have against our myriads of challenges is in the quality of our hearts. Money cannot buy wisdom; money cannot buy inner peace. Not even human intelligence can solve all of the country’s problems. The solutions to our problems reside inside each of us. For too long, we have ignored the power of a heart of empathy; yet that is what is missing in our nation today. No wonder Christ said, “blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

Cardinal de Retz (1613 – 1679), French ecclesiastic and churchman, observed, “One of man’s greatest failings is that he looks almost always for an excuse in the misfortune that befalls him through his own fault, before looking for a remedy—which means he often finds the remedy too late”. Hundred years from now, we would still be saying the same thing until we gradually send this power into the consciousness of our nation. We must make haste to make our people more empathic. We must change the way we view other people and things. This is the time for a paradigm shift from indifference to interest, from pessimism and cynicism to optimism.

Charles Handy (1932), Irish-born British management educator and writer once told U.S: “If you reward the good and ignore or forgive the bad, the good will occur more frequently and the bad will gradually disappear.” When we encourage empathic actions and tag them as “heroic”, we would find more Nigerians display empathic actions in our culture, and over time (only God knows how long), we would have cleared our cosmic consciousness from the present filth we have now.  Henry George (1839 – 1897), a U.S. Economist stated that, “Society is an organism, not a machine. And responds to stimulus.” Nothing stays firm forever. As the seasons turn, everything vanishes like morning dew. The present apathy exhibited by majority of Nigerians towards this nation can actually be history if we become emotionally mature collectively and individually as a people.

We may never solve the entire problems of our human conditions in this nation completely and permanently. No Nation has. But, what remains crucial for us, is that we keep on trying – that we do not permit our challenges to crush us to the ground, either physically or psychologically.

It is this writer’s judgment that until Nigerians become developed and become emotionally mature, which is to be found in the acceptance of this concept, in a way that it becomes a subject matter for the entire society, we would remain in the woods. God forbid. God bless Nigeria.

Thoughts for the week

“When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems”. (Stephen Covey).

“Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place”. (Daniel H. Pink).