Do you have what it takes?

Do you have what it takes to be human in the 21st Century?

Life is extremely competitive. From the day you are born you are being compared to others. Experts are trying to figure out your IQ and your skills from a very early age. You are taught a specific language, culture, religion, and skills set from day one.

Most people grow up with a “us” and “them” attitude. Doesn’t matter who “we” are. Doesn’t matter who “they” are. It is as if we just want to know there is an unseen “they” somewhere that we can blame for everything.

In the process, it seems as if people have lost two very important human characteristics – compassion and empathy. The online Cambridge Dictionary defines compassion as: “a strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others and a wish to help them”. It describes empathy as: “the ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation.”

• By really listening when someone is talking. That means giving them ALL your attention and not formulating your own opinions and responses in your head while the other person is still talking.
• Reading non-verbal cues. A person might say they are okay, but their body language can tell a different story.
• Seeing others’ perspective and thus letting go of being right all the time.
• Developing relationships with real people in the real world and not just online “contacts”.
• Pausing before you react on any statement or situation be that online or in the real world.
• By stepping back and asking, what is behind the emotion? Why is he so angry? Why is she behaving like this? Try to put yourself in another person’s shoes. That does not mean that you approve of their behaviour, but it does mean that you are trying to understand how they are feeling.
• After you have stopped to reflect on a situation only then choose what to say or do next.

It’s easier to blame than to have compassion with others. We want to blame the politicians, the rich, the poor, the big companies, the media for the state that the world is in. We feel we must blame somebody because we just don’t have enough self-confidence to take responsibility.

For we know that whoever takes responsibility, should have enough courage to stand up and take the lead as well. Not to form another “us vs they” group, but to see, hear and treat everybody – not as titles, not as rich or poor, not as healthy or sick, not as successful or as failures – but as human beings.

Human beings have emotions. Human beings care. Human beings accept. Human beings don’t blame. Human beings are us… Do you have what it takes?