Rarely am I speechless. Being struck speechless would not only be a failing of my job — but — it would be a small miracle, at least according to my husband and close friends. Still, though, every once in a while, something happens and I am rendered silent. My response to the most recent occurrence of dumbfoundedness happened this week, surprise, in an airport. READ MORE…

from the archives

I talk a lot about empathy — providing a space for yourself and others to experience multiple sides of an experience. It is important to provide a space for you to really understand what you are feeling. It is also important to provide space for the impact your own experiences may have on others and try to understand many possibilities that the other folks may be feeling.

Example — AZ SC 1070 — How scared must some people be of rapist, murderers, and kidnappers that don’t have identification therefore cannot be held accountable to heinous crimes? How dependent are AZ law enforcement agents on witnesses, neighbors, friends, and family members to make reports, give tips, and take responsibility for justice? How scared would I feel if I was often perceived as someone that may not have documentation to be inside the United States? How unrecognized is my own sense of entitlement of being a US Citizen — I had no choice about where I was born — the same with many others — AND I don’t have a perceived skin color or facial structure that would lead to someone questioning me.

A space of empathy requires patience and honest dialog.

Bystander behaviors are another form of dialog we tend to have with ourselves or others and can require patience. This is when you don’t really do something when you know that something really needs to be done. Maybe you figure someone else will do it, you worry about peer pressure, who knows, but you have a dialog about the situation and you decide not to act and possibly wait for someone else! There are lots of examples of bystander behavior, people walking by someone dying on a street, last year a woman died in an emergency waiting room and went unchecked for hours, earlier this year a woman was gang raped while a huge crowd looked on — yet no one came forward as a witness.  Sometimes, we don’t step forward because it might be unsafe or too risky for us to do so, yet we know through that inner dialog that we should. The more we patiently await for someone else to do something the more we question and reaffirm our decision to not do anything.

Let’s put these two together now…

I recently was on an airplane where a suitcase appeared to have fallen off of the conveyor belt used to load luggage into the cargo area of the plane.  I sat in my window seat and watched several airport ground crew notice the bag, check the bag tags, and leave the bag where it was. That bag was not making it onto this plane. I debated telling a flight attendant, but what could they do from inside the plane? I starting thinking about the owner of the bag. What if there is medication in the bag? Is this how baggage gets lost? What would happen if I were to land and my luggage was lost! I started thinking that perhaps the suitcase was brought to the wrong plane. Maybe it isn’t supposed to be on this flight and is awaiting a ride to the right plane. All of these things are possible and me not doing anything or the ground crew doing what looked to me as not doing anything could be like bystander behavior and requires patience AND the owner of the bag, the ground crew member that might have made a mistake, etc., could have very different feelings during this simple moment in time.

This is a great example of both/and. There isn’t THE way. There is A way. To confront or resolve a situation may or may not be appropriate in every case for everyone. Both experiences are lived and there may be even more elements that I am not thinking of or feeling. This knowledge requires empathy, reflection, and patience for others and for yourself.