EMPATHY wins the Heart....

Empathy...an awesome word, especially for those who listens from heart. But what is 'Empathy'? 

It is the understanding how others feel and compassionate towards them.

The neuroscientists say that it happens when two parts of the brain works together.

Research has shown that the empathy makes people better managers and workers and also better family members and friends. Some people are naturally empathetic than others whereas some just try to be. 

Most of us are surrounded by people who look like us, respond like us, earn like us, spend like us and also have educations like us, yet the people are different in their approach.  

Yesterday, all of sudden I received a phone call from an unknown number and I was bit surprised as just four days before we experienced a super-cyclone 'amphan' which devastated the normalcy of human life; due it's severe damage there was no electricity or mobile network in the entire city for few days. When I received this call I was kind of surprised...

The caller was 'Sharath' on the other end, it took few seconds for me to realized that. 

Sharath and I were working together in my previous organization. One day Sharath came to my office and was crying out loud with his complaints on how his team mates and supervisors were not helping him to learn his work. 

Every time he tried to give his ideas for a task his superiors used to laugh at him and ignored his ideas. Sharath is well educated and well behaved individual, had done his Bachelors in Hotel Management from one of the reputed Hotel School in India. He belongs to the well to do family, nurtured with love, respect and care. 

When Sharath was experiencing the negative vibes from his team members he felt to come and share his sadness with me and he did so many times early, got mentally relieved after getting counselled by me. 

On that very day, he was bit more upset and broken from inside and couldn't resist himself to hold his tears and came to my office, sat. Bursting in tears he said the first sentence, 'Sir, I am going to quit now'. 

I knew him as a strong candidate who learnt from all obstacles and negative experiences. I was bit confused. I requested him to share the facts as what happened with him and he started narrating his week's experience as how he was sidelined by his team, how his credit at work was taken by other team members, how he was ignored by his departmental head and so on...

Knowing him very well, I counselled him for more than an hour. Shared with him my personal failure experiences and how I used to struggle at some point of time which was almost similar like him. I had expressed my care and empathy to him. Magically he started realizing and became determined in his approach. I could see the confidence in him popped up with a smile and determination.  He left my office happily.

When the call came and he said to me, "Sir, can you remember the day when I came to you with lost hopes and broken-heart, that would have been my last day at work, in fact it would have been my last day in this industry (hospitality)".

I acknowledged it with a long 'Yeessss'.

Our conversation was going on with exchanging of our well-beings and the situations in this lock-down period. 

He kept on thanking me for that day and claimed that the day was a turning point in his life.

Lastly, he mentioned a line which was struck in my mind, he said, "Sir, many people talk about being empathetic and give lectures about it but I have experienced what is 'EMPATHY' from you and will never forget in my life".

Sometimes, what we do to others we do not remember, probably it was not that great to keep in memory, but the same can be a memory for others whom you have done good. 

Quoting a great line of Albert Einstein, 'Empathy is patiently and sincerely seeing the world through the other person's eyes. It is not learnt in school; it is cultivated over a lifetime'.