What does it mean to put oneself in another person’s shoes?
I will now talk about what it means to put oneself in another person’s shoes and also my feelings.
Putting oneself in another person’s shoes simply means that sympathise and not to pity a person. Sympathise means to feel and see things in that person’s perspective whereas pity means that one feel that he is lucky that he is not that person. In order to be able to do this, we must be thinkers, meaning that we must be sensitive and know what affects that person and what possible thoughts would that person have towards that event, and thus be able to make the right comment that will not affect that person negatively.
I feel that putting oneself in another person’s shoes is very important.If all of us are able to put ourself in the other person’s shoes, we would definitely reduce the amount of unnecessary conflicts between ourselves. This is because of the fact that we are able to understand each other and thus, we will know the reasons as to why that person is doing such a thing. For example, if Person A is feeling upset and doing things properly, we must find out why he is doing so. Perhaps, something unfortunate happened to one of his family member or that he is just throwing a tantrum. By doing so, we will know the situation and be able to help that person.
In conclusion, if we are able to put ourselves in another person’s shoes, we will not only be able to help that person, we will always be able to make the right comments and help to understand him.
Lastly, we must also learn from the character of Atticus from the story. He is able to put himself in other characters shoes, for example Bob Ewell even though Bob Ewell actually insulted him and spat him in the face. He is also able to feel for everyone, and understand why they actually committed a certain action.
Done By: Gordon Koh 2i115
In real life, would there be a situation where you can put yourself in other people's shoes? For example, you had a misunderstanding with your best friend. Why would you have a misunderstanding? Friends are meant to understand each other, not argue every single day and waste your precious oxygen. So obviously, by putting yourself in the other person's shoes, you can easily identify, why exactly would you get into an argument with your friend? Is it your behaviour that is disturbing? Is it that s/he is having some issues at home? It's a lot easier to find out like this, although you will obviously need to wait for a suitable time to ask him. :)
ReplyDeletePeople who can put themselves in the viewpoint of others and understand their plight can only be called true gentlemen, in my opinion. Being able to calmly judge the behaviour of certain people and their reasons for their actions is an extremely important skill too! :)
Alex Liew (17) 2i1
P.S. Ms Huang, if you are seeing this, this DOES NOT link to my blog. :P I used this account for my infocomm studies blog last year, and I needed to use this account to comment on people's blogs which are hosted on Blogspot.
Hi Gordon,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your blog post, I felt it was rather insightful, but there are still places in which you could have improved.
First, I agree that we should sympathize with someone instead of feeling pitiful. Your definition of these two words very accurate, and you managed to state some of the requirements which were needed. Furthermore, you also extended your blog post to cover the possible consequences.
However, I felt that you might have needed to give an example in order to better illustrate your points. Also, you must understand that when we put ourself in someone else's shoes, it's not for the sole purpose of reducing unnecessary conflicts between two parties (or to make politically right comments), but it is also so that we can improve our relationship with them and also help them to overcome their problems or frustrations. It is also a much better alternative by asking the person "What happened?", and he may also indirectly take it as a threat.
Finally, your last paragraph someone diverts from the main point in this blog post. To relate it better, you might want to consider explaining what he could have been thinking when Bob Ewell spat in his face, and provide a few more examples of him being able to feel for everyone.
Keven Loo (2i114)