Out of Sync

Life becomes harder when we live for others but it also becomes richer and happier.

Somewhere down the line this quote has become as obsolete as it can be. As of today we seem to be satisfied with the support and comfort provided by our friends and family. We don’t try to look beyond them. What about others? The rest of humanity? Have we forgotten they exist or have we just conveniently made up our minds that the problems other people face are insignificant compared to ours. Our generation has a memory span of a gold-fish. As soon as we hear about a tragedy we feel sad for a bit of time and then we are back again sharing the trailer of an upcoming movie with our friends. This shows how desensitized we have become since the dotcom boom. The psychological link which connects humans across borders and oceans sure looks like it’s going to break away sooner or later.

The roots of empathy lie in our desire to connect with others on a personal level. This desire has diminished so much that we find ourselves texting or emailing rather than speaking. Sure, this route seems efficient and quick….and then what? A feeling of being distant, being less concerned creeps in. All we have done is fall into a trap of hyper-connected world and got ourselves a faceless identity sitting in front of a screen lost in our own world. In the pursuit of getting connected with everyone online, we have lost the ability to truly connect with others. This “connection” is what cultivates empathy. From switching between one device to another and lingering on online forums, we have developed a personality which is less thoughtful, less gracious and overly critical of others. One may call it a defence or a coping mechanism but, in reality we are just afraid of facing our feelings. “If I don’t even understand my emotions, how in the world am I supposed to understand yours?”

We no longer desire to feel what others feel. Studies have shown that in the last 30 years our levels of empathy have significantly fallen i.e. considering others feelings and understanding their pain. We aren’t slowing down long enough to think beyond ourselves. We have been taught as kids to cover and hide our emotions as displaying them would make us appear weak. You know it’s a bad state when we can’t even feel we are alone. In our effort to appear strong we have started seeing emotions as a sign of being weak and have become fearful of them. What we are afraid of, rules us. Allow yourself to feel and express emotions.

Label them. Whatever might have been the cause for it, at its core, the emotions we feel are the same throughout each one of us. This should help us to understand and get on the same level with the people around us. This seems difficult in our current situation where people are locked away from reality and are possibly in love with their isolation.

In spite of coming from different backgrounds, belonging to different races and religions- we are all humans. We breathe the same air, we look at the same sky, we dream the same dreams. Divisions are arbitrary. For this to happen, we must drop the facade and simply be in sync with our surroundings, our fellow humans and ultimately the real you. We should be making a choice to be our true selves and a commitment to celebrate our lives and the lives around us should be the ultimate goal.

This can only be achieved by going out there and making real connections instead of being happily wrapped up in your own private bubble. Instead of not thinking beyond ourselves and going from conquering one to-do to another, we must reach out and start caring about others, empathize with them. Make sure you rejoice with them when they rejoice and weep with them when they weep. Only then we can eliminate the feeling of mutual distrust which has clouded our life and made our society to become as it is today. We need each other, not only for our sake and the people we love but also to make sure our society doesn’t degrade into a shallow one.

We all want to live in a society which is non judgemental, infused with compassion, grace and full of human understanding because, without all this a society would become filled with sociopaths and people driven with nothing but their own selfish interests.

So what would you be willing to do to make sure that the world you inhabit doesn’t just become a world filled with people incapable of seeing beyond themselves?

Last but not least, we must always remember the biblical truth “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.”

By, Imran(ECE 2/2)

#featured #Home