No, they may seem different but. . .!
A very different to listen to some word and to experience to the true meaning of that word. I heard empathy many times and being empathic means going beyond sympathy and helping the humans around us by sharing better options to help them get out the challenges they might be going through at that time. This is what I experienced throughout my more than 2 years of being far from my family and friends, particularly in the days of covid-19, having almost zero social interactions. I experienced it and they weren’t easy!
As a foreign student coming from Lahore, Pakistan — a very vibrant and socially active culture to a culture far different from your home country. You see less people around you, not the kind of hustle you have been experiencing since your childhood. Rather, its a society with values that aren’t similar with those of your own country, you see people with different outlook, attires and preferences. Apparently, you will find them as different as you are for them. But wait! you need to get back to your thoughts triggering point. You need to reimagine your sense of comparison. A moment ago, what made you to feel different were the stereotype inside you what was making you to count the differences and the things that are not completely same with the picture of nice humans inside your mind. But now, you need to go to the core, the essence of our humanity, the global shared values. You will see the people with having same tendency towards emotions- standing with right, feeling bad for any kind of violence, being nice to fellow humans and being empathic with best of their capacities. You will realize sooner or later, that the humans around the world act humanity!
I can relate so many such challenges with the people having similar challenging phase of life, rather with way harder experiences: the migrants or immigrants. All they need a welcoming support and gesture of empathy, you will see them doing wonders for the community.
I am sharing my very personal perspective as a foreigner in Italy, how such kind of small things had put a very big impact on my perspectives.
I did my Erasmus exchange program in Spain for my last semester, so I was in need of someone to talk with, to have some friend whom I can express. And the movements were restricted because of COVID restrictions that were adding more to these thoughts. Fortunately, the region where I was studying was doing relaxation for COVID restrictions in later half of my semester and I had the opportunity to attend some lecture physically. After finishing every class, I was always looking towards my fellow mates to have conversation so I can share what I am going through. Its true that I could understand that its human nature that we tend towards people with similar backgrounds and similar looks. But I can share based on my experiences that I realized that one of us will have to step ahead, one of us will have to overcome that stereotype inside each of us, by saying hi or giving a smile of welcome to that different one from either side!
This ice breaking then brings to you to the beautiful inner of those apparently different, sometimes impolite or harsh people. I can vouch, we wont be in the situation to understand their thoughts until we start making a conscious small interactions with the people in those circumstances, because ultimately these minor contributions of empathy will be helping us to understand what they are going through actually.
I can say, those small happenings in first part of my exchange semester had a very strong impact on my approach towards fellow humans and at one stage I was very pessimist and got a kind of rebellious behavior. and the empathy from both sides eventually helped and I got good friends. I ended having a very beautiful relation with those people. I still enjoy having those friends.
