It’s confusing when you grow up in a religious environment and years later when you’re a young man people from not just the church but many faiths tell you that you have to be selfish to survive.
Over time I think I’ve realised that they’re somewhat right, but I still couldn’t help but feel critical of putting myself above others.
By no means am I a saint, but my sometimes annoying way of giving a shit about people, places and things somehow makes me feel like I’ve lost my edge.

I think that’s why I suffered a lot mentally in my late teens and early twenties. It was then that I began to understand the complex, fickle and often cruel nature of the world.

Some win and some lose, that is how it ends up for all of us. Life is a race, and if you cant compete, you get trampled. You either toughen up or jog on somewhere else. At the core of this is the idea that to win, you have to put yourself above everyone and everything else.

As much as I hate losing most of the time, the idea of being a completely selfish person makes me uneasy. I spent so much time trying to be a better person that it would seem that the last 20 odd years would end up being for nothing. Like I said, I am no saint, but I didn’t like the chance of me becoming an even bigger asshole.

The world seems to have a lot of them anyway, so somehow the thought of morphing into that didn’t seem original. Politics, media, sports and everyday life seemed to be filled with people who don’t care anymore. I think the appeal of being a good person has somehow been made out to mean that you’re a pussy or that you’re naive.

And while I do agree that the world is not all sunshine and rainbows…that it is at times, a mean and nasty place, I don’t think that that means we should lose one of the most important traits that make’s us human.

Empathy.

Feeling for another person, trying to understand where they are coming from is what makes us a cohesive society. There are obvious exceptions…racism, bigotry, sexism and discrimination, all aspects of a human that we should never be tolerant of. But when you look at the broader picture, this community that we live in holds so many different types of people, from a variety of different backgrounds. It’s almost vital for us to at least try to empathise.

Understanding what people do, and more importantly why they do it gives us better insight, not only into other peoples lives but also our own.

I was listening to a podcast not long ago, the hosts were talking about suicide and hostage negotiations. The topic of using the good cop, bad cop routine came up and was immediately dismissed as ineffective. The host said that the most effective way to handle hostage situations was by treating the person like a human being and NOT a criminal.

I recount to days where I was at my lowest. Where I felt like I didn’t matter. I couldn’t help but think that if I could just say something out loud to someone, just to vent every little thing that was building up and starting to bother me, then somehow, someway that would’ve made a massive difference. Instead, I sat there on my bed each night, covered in sweat, shaking in anxiety, fresh from whatever nightmare my mind decided to take a trip into.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that people just want to be understood. They want someone to talk to, they want to feel like they can be heard and our biggest mistake as a collective species, is our inability to WANT to hear another person. Its all about the individual, its all about me and you…its never about us.

The massive problems that we face today are all OUR problems.

Sexual assault and rape, domestic violence and child abuse, global warming and pollution, homelessness and world hunger…these are all issues that affect so many more people than we realise. On top of that, the people that are affected come from so many different situations and backgrounds.

Everyone has their own stories but these issues that we face are those that we have to face as a collective. But, because we cant feel for the people next to us, these problems continue to grow.

Plain and simple, we choose to forget about the less fortunate and we aren’t educated enough about the effects of so many negative things…all because we are so caught up in our day to day problems. Understanding the unique perspectives of so many people might change your whole entire life, but no one seems to have the balls to at least try.

If we were given a chance to listen to all those women who were affected by Harvey Weinstein just a little bit earlier, then maybe the problem could’ve been solved much sooner and we could’ve stopped a monster before it was too late. Instead, we chose to live out our lives and call it the norm.

If we had listened to scientists who told us that the world was going to suffer if we were to continue to emit CO2 and pollute our air then maybe the ice caps wouldn’t be melting from global warming.

And maybe, just maybe if we had listened more closely to that one guy or girl who was talking down about themselves, who were truly lost and was suffering on the inside…then maybe our suicide statistics wouldn’t be so high either.

Empathy leads to compassion and it doesn’t just change lives…it moulds and shapes a better future for more than just the next generation. It helps shed the toxicity that kills our humanity and it makes way for a more cohesive society.

You see, we don’t own anything besides our actions, even the material things we have can be ultimately stripped away from us. However our actions are what makes us who we are, its the only tangible thing that can make real change.  Empathy, choosing to feel for the other person…understanding that it isn’t cut and dry and there might be a totally different story that we may be oblivious to, maybe the one thing that makes a difference.