For me it is the ability of a person to see outside their
shadow. When I give advice, I tend to try and put myself in the other person’s
shoes, and really try and look and perceive what the other person might be
seeing. It has been a fairly easy process to undertake, primarily because I
have dealt with enough drama and conflict in my own life to understand where
other people are coming from 98% of the time. For me, maturity has never been
about name calling, or blind hate, because it’s pretty pointless to lay stake
in claims that you know things about people when you do not.

I have been a point person, an advice giver, for so many people I have met that
I have lost count. I listen, I take the words in, and I point out fault in
arguments and motivation when it is clear and true and obvious to do so. Of
course, this is advice given on the perspective of one person, the person
confiding in me, and it makes the statement above seem like an oxymoron,
of course. An oxymoron because I could never claim to know anything more than
what I was told about a given situation or person involved. Then again, it is
not my business to be the fucking mediator.

For some reason, my place in the lives of my friends has been repeatedly
assaulted on a number of occasions. And because I am the person listening, the
venting board, the sounding board, and the person privy to so much of this
drama, the result of the conflict is immediately pinned upon my own shoulders.
I am guilty simply because I have given my advice, listened and been an adult
about the conflicts that have come up in the lives of my own friends. I never
tell people what to do anymore, simply because it is not human nature to
follow directions from other people about your own life. I simply
listen, and point to possible motivations, psychologically and otherwise, to
the conflicts at hand.

The main point I would like to make about all of this is this: Number one,
did I make you do the thing you did to even motivate the drama? Number two,
isn’t pinning the blame on someone else the cop out for taking responsibility
for your own actions, and truly understanding what it is that caused this
conflict in the first place? I mean, sure, it’s easier to blame someone else
for your own shortcomings or the drama that you perpetuate, but at the end of
the day, isn’t it just completely pointless?

It solves nothing, but it does have this way of breeding more animosity. In
a mature world, people would be able to move on, and open their eyes up a
little wider to the world around them. They would be able to place themselves
in the shoes of the people around them, and develop something I see less and
less of everyday: empathy. The ability to empathize with someone else or a
situation is not weak, it is not wrong. It is only humane, and I use it
every single day while listening to my friends, reading the paper, and trying
to understand the world around me. Another thing I would like to point out
about it, empathy is relative to the situation at hand, bad or good. It is not
swarming in negativity or sadness; it is simply being able to identify with
your fellow human beings, and literally trying to see things from their eyes because
it’s not all about you.

It never was…