What was this proverb ? If you need to know someone, walk a mile in his shoe ...or to that effect.
There's another sentence for it - to know where you're coming from...like when you hear, I understand where s/he is coming from...
I suppose when you know or understand where someone is coming from, you can develop some compassion, or you can allow compassion (if you have it in your heart to start with) to emerge...
With people I feel to be genuine and authentic, am all ears...When I FEEL them to be GENUINE and AUTHENTIC but when that feeling is not there, am as hard as a rock.
It is quite sad in so many ways that this equation is not always reciprocal, or mutual...most people are too self focused, and they just need to be understood, cared for and accepted. And without wanting to boast too much, just giving myself some credit, I can safely say that I've listened and given way more than what I have received...
I suppose I've started off with the assumption, the hidden assumption, that nothing goes to waste, that nothing goes unaccounted for. Maybe this is what Faith is all about.
Yet I must also say that many a times I've been down and out, coming in from the cold, and there was no one there for me...many reasons for that - Iraq is a big one.
Dispersed families in different countries, no natural extended network, or basis of support, trying to fend for myself, staying strong so as not to be overwhelmed with events, keeping a cool head so I don't lose perspective and faith, also not wanting to be a burden on anyone, not wanting to impose with my issues...yet I kept my ears wide open for other people's issues even when I was the one who needed to be listened to, who needed the support the most...
At times, I'd lose it and become enraged with the lack of insight from others, with their refusal to acknowledge their over sense of self, their self centeredness, their lack of empathy, of understanding ...in sum their lack of compassion.
And this is where my rage around Iraq comes from as well. I have met very very few people who walked a mile in an Iraqi shoe, very few who stopped and listened, very few who lend genuine ears...
We are not a kind of people who constantly whine and lament like other nations, this is our character...but I am yet to meet someone who genuinely strove to scratch below the surface, and see for themselves, where we're coming from, and what a cold place it is.
But as the Arabic proverb goes - Faqed el Sha'y la ya'tee. Meaning the one who lacks a thing - cannot give it away. Alas, this is very true.
