50p
Empathy 1
Editor's Note: The following is a Fabrications Speech which, unsurprisingly, was selected to represent the Grade 9 class and which was delivered, with aplomb, to applause, at Assembly last Thursday.
Well done, Yasmeen.
You’re selfish. Don’t feel too bad about it though, I’m selfish too. I mean we’re all selfish. I’m nervously sweating my armpits off up here. But almost all of you, if not all of you, don’t mind that. I’m sure you’re just glad it’s me up here ruining my #1 uniform and not you.
That’s the way most people live day-to-day, and nobody says it isn’t okay. People today are so driven to succeed simply as in individual that we don’t think about how our actions affect other. Our society is becoming more and more unconcerned and narcissistic. This apathetic mindset not only weakens us as a community, it’s measurably progressing into a worse problem that can emotionally cripple those around us if we’re not careful.
Without consideration for others, we can’t function as a community. When you approach a problem and only think of how you can benefit, have the easy way out, or do as little work as possible, it completely ruins the group’s dynamic. You can’t accomplish anything if you aren’t willing to compromise and see others as equals who want to get this project done just as much as you do.
Group work is essential for success at work and school. That’s why it’s a frightening thought that college students, the future of our workplaces and homes, are actually becoming less and less empathetic. Sara H. Konrath from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor led a study which found that students’ SELF-reported empathy has declined since 1980, and steeply so in the last 10 years. Nearly 75 percent of students today rate themselves as less empathetic than the average student 30 years ago.
The scariest part is that the study collected their self-reported empathy. They rated themselves. Do you want to hear some examples of what they had to respond to?
Students were asked whether they agreed with statements such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me” and “I try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement before I make a decision.”
Those questions are so transparent that you could easily, EASILY rig the test to make yourself seem like a better person. But no, students don’t even care about SEEMING like they care. There just seems to be a whole lot of uncaring going around, and if not a total lack of care, selective-caring: choosing only to care about your friends, while you let that quiet kid in your class sit alone at the lunch table. We’ve all been there at some point. Desperately looking around, trying to find a place where we belong, somewhere we feel accepted. Our frantic search, however, is to no avail; you aren’t friends with any of the people you see before you, and so you resign to sitting alone. You tell yourself it’s for the best. You don’t really like them anyways. But deep down, you secretly wish that someone would come along and sit beside you. But no, they have their own friends to worry about. You’re just another person they’d have to cater to. A burden. We’ve all been there, and boy does it suck. But many of us have been on the other side, having a good time with our friends, looking over at that quiet kid. Sitting alone. It doesn’t take much to sit down and have a conversation with someone; to pick up a textbook the girl whose name you don’t even know dropped going up the stairs, to smile and say, “Thank you” to the cashier at Thrifty’s. These are just the little things can brighten the day of someone going through a tough time, totally unknown to you. We’re all human. We have our bad days. And once we’ve taken care of ourselves, we shouldn’t just stop caring. Take the extra second to smile, the extra two to say, “Thank you”, the extra few to pick up that one textbook too many, that one lunch break to share a meal and a laugh with someone who was left alone. Because you’re not a burden. No one is. Yasmeen G, Allard ‘17
Those questions are so transparent that you could easily, EASILY rig the test to make yourself seem like a better person. But no, students don’t even care about SEEMING like they care. There just seems to be a whole lot of uncaring going around, and if not a total lack of care, selective-caring: choosing only to care about your friends, while you let that quiet kid in your class sit alone at the lunch table. We’ve all been there at some point. Desperately looking around, trying to find a place where we belong, somewhere we feel accepted. Our frantic search, however, is to no avail; you aren’t friends with any of the people you see before you, and so you resign to sitting alone. You tell yourself it’s for the best. You don’t really like them anyways. But deep down, you secretly wish that someone would come along and sit beside you. But no, they have their own friends to worry about. You’re just another person they’d have to cater to. A burden. We’ve all been there, and boy does it suck. But many of us have been on the other side, having a good time with our friends, looking over at that quiet kid. Sitting alone. It doesn’t take much to sit down and have a conversation with someone; to pick up a textbook the girl whose name you don’t even know dropped going up the stairs, to smile and say, “Thank you” to the cashier at Thrifty’s. These are just the little things can brighten the day of someone going through a tough time, totally unknown to you. We’re all human. We have our bad days. And once we’ve taken care of ourselves, we shouldn’t just stop caring. Take the extra second to smile, the extra two to say, “Thank you”, the extra few to pick up that one textbook too many, that one lunch break to share a meal and a laugh with someone who was left alone. Because you’re not a burden. No one is. Yasmeen G, Allard ‘17