VALUES Like most of my values, i learned about empathy from my mother. She disdained any kind of cruelty or thoughtless or abuse of power, whether it expressed itself in the form of racial prejudice or bullying in the schoolyard or workers being underpaid. Whenever she saw even a hint of such behaviour in me she would look me square in the eyes and ask, How do you think that would make you feel? But it was in my relationship with my grandfather that i think I first internalized the full meaning of empathy. Because my mothers work took her overseas, I often lived with my grandparents during my high school years, and without a father present in the house, my grandfather bore the brunt of much of my adolescent rebellion. He himself was not always easy to get along with; he was at once warmhearted and quick to anger, and in part because his career had not been particularly successful, his feelings could also be easily bruised. By the time i was sixteen we were arguing all the time, usually about me failing to abide by what i considered to be an endless series of petty and arbitrary rules--filling up the gas tank whenever i borrowed his car, say, or making sure that i rinsed out the milk carton before i put it in the garbage. With a certain talent for rhetorics, as well as an absolute certainty about the merits of my own views, i found that i could generally win these arguements, in the narrow sense of leaving grandfather flustered, angry, and sounding unreasonable. But at some point, perhaps in my senior year, such victories started to feel less satisfying. I started thinking about the struggles and disappointments he had seen in his life. I started to appreciate his need to feel respected in his own home. I realized that abiding by his rules would cost me little. But to him it would mean alot. I recognized that sometimes he really did have a point, and that in insisting on getting my own way all the time, without regard to his feelings or needs. I was in some way diminishing myself. Theres nothing extraordinary about such an awakening, of course; in one form or another it is what we all must go through if we are to grow up. And yet i find myself returning again and again to my mothers simple principle--How would that make you feel?--as a guidepost for my politics. ~ Barack Obama [The Audacity of Hope]
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 10:22:14 +0000
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