Molly Ott: An Invitation
Empathy’s synonyms: kindness, sympathy, and gentleness seem to be easier to understand because society recognizes them surely. The meaning of empathy is suggested as much bigger than the words it is associated with because it combines them in definition. Fundamental development is made of components and true growth happens as we combine our education with responses and actualize “the revolution of human relationships” by connecting in fullness.
Learning empathy had a longer path for me because I believed kindness was synonymous. The saying “it is better to start an education with nothing to unlearn” applies to all aspects of the human ego. Pride is our biggest hindrance to advancement so I had to unlearn the confidence of being “the nice girl”. Being nice caters to pleasing people but being empathetic comprehends someone. Empathy revealed itself as I sat across a table from a beautiful woman, hoping to make her enjoy the conversation by being friendly and asking her where she came from. I am ashamed my reaction to “Afghanistan” revealed the missiles and burqas in my mind but the holiness of the moment made me continue my questions. Nostalgia made her beam at how magnificent her homeland is. Empathy rocked me when I watched her eyes remember war. I shed being a girl whose America was fighting her Afghanistan: I could feel her pride of country, the familiarity of walking on a home’s floor, and the grief of people’s capabilities. Empathy is a reception.
It is hard admitting to attributes we lack, so learning empathy can never be planned. The structure of education and our faith in its systems makes reaching beyond our understanding difficult, “demonstrating [our] discipline to stick to the lesson plan”. Empathy came to me both in fluctuations of increase and decrease. Watching my classmates take advantage of their breakaway experience I believed that my empathy was failing but in hind sight I can see that my growth was only possible by these moments of doubt. By not feeling empathy towards their selfishness, I also felt sadness that they might never understand their loss. From the first night, they would assemble a group and lose themselves in the bar section of our city. The nights I joined them I would stand in the back and tell myself not to cry. I would see my friends as the people they could be and watch them continually deny that person every day. Empathy is eagerly reborn and by asking “why?” my bitterness changed to compassion, changing me into someone who could help them. At times it is hard to feel empathy because it goes against our belief of discipline but the real strength is in the curiosity to consider changing perspective.
When I came home the empathy I gained abroad no longer grew in privacy. Now I was far away from the things that challenged my previous understanding and as I listened to conversations, I learned that people felt far away from things too. Global news is not real for the people at home. To manipulate my immature anger towards ignorance and instead empathetically greet it with education is becoming one of the biggest lessons of my life. Empathy has been teaching me that I am a testament to the faces I have seen and the buildings I have entered, that what is happening thousands of miles away is happening to me.
Being comfortable makes ignorance appealing but empathy is amazing because it persistently woes us throughout our lives. Travelling put me in places that made me uncomfortable and yet exposed fresh areas of cultivation in my life. Being right or incorrect does not determine an individual’s understanding of empathy. We each have experiences that define what empathy means to us and if we choose to respond with “what?” and “why?” the “empathy vacuum in our classrooms and, as an extension, in society” will be overtaken by an inertia of progress.
Molly Ott is a double major of Visual Art and Spanish and will be graduating with honors in May of 2017. Her study abroad experience occurred in Alicante, Spain where she studied at the Universidad de Alicante in the spring of 2015. After graduating from Lander she aims to have a year of residency through a Latin American University, with a focus on sculpture. The residency will be a preparation for graduate school where she will earn a Masters of Fine Arts.