On a sunny spring afternoon, two friends pass by each other as they are walking on their way home from class. One of them is having one of the most miserable days of their existence–they are in the depths of a terrible, existential crisis and they see absolutely no hope for the future. The other is struggling with the loss of a loved one, and has wrestled with sadness for so long that they now feel nothing but a resounding emptiness.
“How is your day going?” one of the friends asks to the other.
“It’s going good, how are you?”
“Good!”
They part ways and continue on with their miserable days.
It seems that in our culture, we have a weird tendency to not only pretend to be fine, but to block out any negative emotions completely. We refuse to let others see that we are vulnerable or struggle with things, even though every human being does.
It’s like these emotions that we are born with have become our enemies, and we rapidly block out any other human being–even the ones that we trust–from seeing that we have weaknesses or fears. Perhaps it’s rooted in our insecurity or our inability to properly express our feelings, but we live in a society of “never share any emotion that is not happiness,” and it is not good for us.
Empathy is one of the most important traits that human beings have. It allows us to understand what other people are feeling and dealing with. However, we are so scarcely given chances to use it when our existence consists primarily of pretending to feel fine, and never letting our vulnerabilities be out in the open
The issue here is that behind our exterior of coolness and uncaring, we're all rabidly afraid. Our insecurities and our fear of judgement bothers us so much that the prospect of having to be weak in front of another person is traumatizing.
This insecurity and this fear of showing our weaknesses turns us into hollow human beings that pretend that our problems do not exist. However, pretending does not make these things go away, and it does not make us happier. It simply buries our misery deeper beneath the surface.
I am not proposing that we should spill our guts in front of every person that we meet, or be swift to share our fears and our deepest feelings. In fact, there is a time and a place to share these things, and it is often unwise to share negative feelings so readily.
However, what I am proposing is that we are able to share those feelings, and that we’re able to be open with other people. In order for our culture to function in a way that is full of empathy and cares for other people, we need to realize that there is a person behind every single face that we come across.
That realization of our own mutual humanity starts with simply being honest and open with the right people at the right time. For the sake of our humanity, we must do so.
