Empathy isn’t what you thought

When you think about it, “putting yourself in other peoples shoes” isn’t really empathy at all:

• Us in their shoes isn’t them. It’s just us, in their shoes. We’re merely imagining ourselves in a different situation.
• Impressing our reality on others isn’t fair. How can it be empathy if we’re still impressing our version of reality onto them?
• It takes all kinds. Part of the beauty of a team is the diversity of perspective and opinion. That’s lost on this kind of “empathy”.

Let’s not “treat others like we’d like to be treated.” Instead, let’s treat them like they’d like to be treated.