See the Other Side?

We're often told that if we tried to see things as people of another point of view see them, we can increase understanding and perhaps decrease conflict. Some recent survey work suggests that this idea works only when the right steps are followed.

The problem comes when the other perspective is guessed instead of actually learned. In other words, if I guess what someone who disagrees with me thinks about an issue I will probably make a lot of errors when I do. But if I listen to the other person explain his or her perspective -- and by "listen" i don't mean "pause for breath in between stating my own beliefs" -- then I might gain some understanding about how they actually see things and thus understand them better. Which is the goal anyway, and apparently the study suggests that the shortcut we like to say we can take of imagining what another person feels just doesn't work.

All the same, though, I still think that the old saying of, "Before you judge others, you should walk a mile in their shoes" to be valuable. Because, of course, that way when you judge them, you will be a mile away, and you will have their shoes. I couldn't find the original source for this quote. The internet seems to think it's from Jack Handey or Steve Martin according to the top answers but the internet has a very short view of history and for some reason the idea that G.K. Chesterton said it is sticking in my mind.

Pretty good advice either way.

(For those interested in this sort of thing, this is post number 4,000 on this wee corner of the internet. Or, from another point of view, this is the four thousandth time I have pretended that someone other than me is interested in what I have to say.)