Compassion and Empathy

25/100 compassion and empathy
I used to work in a school that had a sign taped over the copy machine that said “lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” I always felt a smug agreement with this sign. As a planner, maybe even a little compulsively so, I never had to run in an emergency to the copy machine. I now realize that is actually because planning/prioritization is a strength of mine. But instead of feeling the same sense of smugness now I feel an empathy, the person running to make emergency copies again and again probably had a weakness in planning/prioritization, something they were likely aware of and working on, and I doubt that sign was going to be the thing to change this for them. If anything this sign was probably adding stress to an already stressed out person. I doubt this was the goal of the person who hung the sign, in fact I feel very confident that the person who hung the sign is strong in planning/prioritization. Being aware of my own EF skill strengths and weaknesses has given me a surprising amount of compassion and empathy to things that would have once probably irritated me about other people. Realizing that someone is not doing something to you as a personal affront but just because it is the way their brain works makes it lot easier to understand behaviors that once would have baffled me.
#100daysofefportraits #efportraits