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Putting Yourself in Someone Elses Shoes

Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes takes serious effort. That’s why most of us don’t do it.

The person who works at a call center that we’re arguing about our cell phone bill with.  They don’t have anything to do with the extra fees we were charged. Neither do they usually have any power to change your bill.  But we still take our anger out on them instead of understanding what it’s like to be on that side of the call.

The new cashier at Trader Joes, who doesn’t check you out as fast as the other lines. We think she’s just taking her time, but in reality she just started two weeks ago, and now it’s rush hour and she’s feeling stressed out.  But we get impatient, look for an opportunity to switch lines at the last second, and we don’t smile when we finally get to the front.

The person who passess over your resume. We didn’t realize he had to look through 10,000 resumes and pick not just the best one, but also one that fits in with the company rules. In one case, I’ve seen the best candidate by far turned down because she lived a certain distance away, which had nothing to do with her qualifications. Yet we call the HR representative irrational and not good at their job.

The homeless person we pass on the street every day (there are a lot in Chicago).  Many times we think, why can’t this person just find a job instead of asking me for money everyday. But maybe maybe they were laid off in the recession or have a long-term disability and now can’t support themselves.  And maybe he is an injured war vet who never had got a job due to a disability after being sent back to the US.  We don’t imagine how helpless or emabarrassed he must feel.

And new colleagues or friends that we disagree with. People who not only see the world differently but who also don’t know how you see the world because you don’t really know them well.  We get upset quickly when we don’t like their tone and when things don’t turn out as planned.  But more often than not, it all hinges on a misunderstanding, not the thoughtlessness we accuse them of.  This is even more true with significant others when there is more emotion attached.

If you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you will understand what it is like to be them. To see the world how they see it and understand their worries and anxieties.  But when we do that, we also run the risk of being told NO, figuring out we were wrong, or being forced to compromise our own views. That’s why most of us don’t do it.

In a world of too many options and too little time, it’s easier than ever to ignore other people’s views and stick with your own.

But that doesn’t make it the best approach.

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