A Smart Way To Broaden Your Perspective
Enlighten yourself with one of the finest tools I learned this year.
One day, scrolling through my Instagram feed, I clicked on the video posted by Mark Manson, New York Times Best-Selling author of The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck. The title of that video was: What calms hatred? And his answer to that question was something that really stuck with me. Increasing your empathy and perspective is a beautiful and truly intellectual practice.
The answer he gave was that — Empathy calms hatred. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we hate someone’s actions and do not know why they did what they did. And it’s a good practice to consider whether your conclusion about someone is justified.
But how does one increase his/her perspective when dealing with a similar situation?
In that video, he gave a technique, or a tool, to help you figure out the situation better. The method goes like this:
You take three pieces of paper and write three informal letters:
The first letter would be to the person you are upset with. Here you can describe who you are upset with, why you are upset with that person, and how you felt after they did whatever they did. Since this is a private note and nobody would be actually reading this except you, make sure that you jot down all the points inside your mind that are making you miserable and feel hurt. By writing this letter, you write the problem. When you write down your problem on paper, it’s easier to find the solution.
On the second piece of paper, you write a letter to yourself as the person you’re upset with. Here you will write down all the points you can think of and the reasons you can think of about why that person did that thing. What are their motivations? What are their feelings? What insecurities are they holding on to? Are they like that in reality? This letter helps you practice empathy because you try to figure out what might actually be going through that person’s mind when they did that. You figure out why that person might feel it was justified to do whatever they did.
Lastly, you take the third piece of paper and write a letter as though you’re a third person. A bystander. Someone who doesn’t know anybody involved in the situation. Try to figure out what that situation might look like to the person who’s watching that happen from a distance. This letter will help you gain more perspective about whether the matter you are fighting about is worth fighting about.
At the end of this exercise, you will have a greater perspective and have figured out, to some extent, about that person’s intentions, feelings, and motives.