Empathy is a joke.

The ability to truly understand another human being, whether in joys or ills, is humanly impossible. In fact, outside of our own close family and friends, other human beings are simply not real people.

My perspective on empathy changed when I became a patient myself a couple years back. Before undergoing a vascular Interventional Radiology procedure, I remember the fellow asked me if I wanted pain medications or not. Since she reassured me that there should be very little pain, I politely declined any analgesics. But when the fellow started to forcefully push the stiff catheter device into my arm, I had to stop the procedure. No pain?? This was fucking pain. Sharp, agonizing pain. I cried and I was embarrassed. and then I asked for some real pain meds.

The next time I went to IR again, I had a different fellow. I asked him to wait a few more seconds after numbing the catheter insertion site with lidocaine before proceeding. His impatience and frustration was obvious. Even though he "understood" the pain I would soon experience, finishing the procedure was a higher priority. I wasn't a real person to him. He waited a few more seconds than what was probably usual for him, and started anyway amidst my weak protests.

And then, I started to realize that the problem with empathy is not isolated to medical professionals and their patients. It's rampant, and it's everywhere. I've even blogged about it before.

Inability to empathize is why we can talk shit about each other. It's why we can conduct heinous acts of violence/racist crimes against each other. Because, even though we know that our victims are human beings, until we've been in their shoes, they are not real persons. We've all got a little antisocial personality disorder in us.

I've brought up my theories to friends/families and at first, there is reluctance to agree with me. People like to think of themselves as nice. That if they saw suffering of any sort, they would be able to relate and help in some way. But frankly, if we were able to empathize with the world, we would be frozen in terror and grief while we truly comprehended the effects of natural disasters and human tragedies.

Empathy really is a joke. And that's a good thing. It allows us to function when the rest of the world might be falling apart. Understanding the truth behind empathy can even make you a better sympathizer. People can tell when you're bullshitting, even if you can't yourself. But, when you realize your own limits, others start to appreciate that you do care, even if you still can't honestly relate.

And also, when more of us start to realize that it's so easy to hurt others because we view non family/friend peoples as objects instead of persons, the world might even become a better place.

Until society looks down on men who choose careers over families, more women than men will choose families over careers.

Women are different from men. There is no doubt that we are biologically different. And biology plays a large role in how we act.

Since women are the only gender that can get pregnant, naturally one can conclude that women should be the primary caretaker of their children.

I argue that women choose to be stay at home moms because society praises them for it. When I had to choose my medical specialty, I noticed that more females than males were discussing the conflicts between careers and families. In fact, I know of several female students who intentionally chose their medical specialty because they wanted to have a family. But why do women still have to choose between success in their careers and success in their families in the 21st century??

Obviously, the fact that fertility decreases dramatically after women turn 35 years old plays a huge part in our decision making. But, assuming the average age difference between married couples is 2 years, I would also assume a large proportion of single male students should also be worrying about having enough time to raise their children.

But they don't. Because society does not expect them to spend more than a couple hours each evening with their kids. Men work. Women raise kids. In fact, society looks down on females who choose careers over families. They are portrayed as the lonely workaholics who have little to show for their lives except for their careers.

If our culture looked down on males who choose careers over families, if we start calling all males who choose to pursue a highly competitive career Mr. Scrooges, men would spend more time with their families. And women could finally have equal opportunities for success.

I strongly believe that an equal proportion of genders/ethnicities/etc should be in an equal proportion of non-physically dominated successful positions such as ceo's/presidents/thursday night comedy stars/etc. That means an equal number of men should be able to become stay at home dads. An equal number of men should be expected to pursue careers that are more family friendly. And an equal number of men and women should be able to pursue careers that are less family freindly.

Women can succeed in formally considered "male-only" roles. Just look at physicians. 50 years ago, there were no women in the profession. Now each class is made up of 50% women. And surprisingly enough, the world has not ended. I would even argue that doctors have benefited from having another perspective since half of our patient population is incidentally female.

In fact, I really wish dads were expected/given the opportunity to spend as much time with their kids as moms. I love our moms. They are strong, wonderful women. But, who knows, maybe having a stronger dad perspective since half our children are males would benefit us in some way. At the least, I'm pretty sure the world won't end.

Compromise ruins relationships.

is what I learned while waiting at the dentist's office yesterday. and i absolutely agree.

i was reading an article about married couples who were at the breaking point of their relationships. these were people who had married for love but either because of an accumulation of small daily stresses or the big decisions of whether or not to have a child were tearing them apart.

Example 1: Mary and Todd

They had 3 children from 8-13 years of age. and every morning was a battle between them to get their kids ready for school. Todd wanted them to learn that actions had consequences, so if they didn't wake up on time with their alarm clocks or missed the school bus, they had to walk to school. Mary wanted them to just get to school, so she would personally wake them up even if they had overslept and drive them to school if they missed the school bus. The kids took full advantage of their parents' arguments and ended up sleeping in and more often than not getting a ride to school.

Both Mary and Todd thought that theirs was the right way. And both felt like they were getting the short end of the stick when it came to the morning routine.

Example 2: Chris and Jill

This was Chris' 2nd marriage and Jill's 1st. Chris already had a 14 year old daughter from his first marriage. Jill had no children of her own. Jill wanted to have kids. Chris, seeing how distraught his daughter was over her dad having another kid, didn't. They were at an impasse. Jill even said that if she knew Chris would have changed his mind about having kids after they were married, she wouldn't have married him in the first place.

In argument over argument, Chris and Jill became more and more polarized. Chris listed all the reasons why they shouldn't have kids. Jill listed all the reasons why they should have kids. If either gave an inch, the other would use it as ammo for their own cause.

Solutions:

I thought the therapist was brilliant. She basically recommended that both couples try the other side for a week at a time and see what happened.

For Mary and Todd, she told them that ONE person should be in charge for a week and the other should just observe. For Chris and Jill, she said that they BOTH should talk about the pros of having kids once and then the cons of having children another time.

And apparently both worked.

For Mary and Todd, they each saw how some of their own routines worked and didn't. Mary saw that by driving the kids to school, the kids would try harder to be late. Todd saw that actually waking up the kids made the whole morning routine less stressful and more efficient.

For Chris and Jill, they may not have come to an agreement, but they were able to see another aspect of their spouses. Rather than the bastard who won't have kids and the incredibly selfish bitch, they saw the husband who was torn between love for his daughter and wife and they saw the wife who wanted a child of her own and was hurt her husband didn't want to share such an important experience.

They say give a little, take a little. But, it might be better to give a lot and take a lot. If one person is in New York and the other in California, it doesn't make sense to live in Montana. Both would feel like they had compromised, both would feel like the other owed them in some way, both would feel like they had been screwed. Rather, it might work better if they both lived in New York, then it's clear who gave/took and when it comes to the next big decision, it'll be on the other person's terms.

Clearly one reason the therapist sessions worked was because she forced the partners to really step into the other's shoes. It's easy to criticize when you're just watching someone. It's harder to bitch when you actually had to stand up for them/actually tried to do things their way for once because you end up criticizing yourself.

If you think of one partner as black and the other white, where they meet shouldn't be just a mix of the two and plain gray. Maybe, it should look more like a checkerboard but when you step back and look at the big picture, it still turns out to be one happy solid color.

Life = Gray.

The world is not divided into right vs wrong, black vs white, good vs evil. As much as we want the people who have wronged us in life to be plain evil, that's very rarely the truth. It takes a bigger person to admit that there is something good in the other, that perhaps even, there are similarities between me and "the other we shall never speak of."

When you start to see things as purely either/or, consider yourself with a Borderline Personality Disorder - a person who "splits" and views people as either with them or against them.