‘When we feel empathy, we live from the heart and become a source of healing for others. It helps to keep our hearts open and remind ourselves to be gentle with one another. You just never know what the people you encounter in everyday life are going through. The woman in front of you in the grocery store line just lost her mother after a nine year battle with cancer. Your boss just found out his wife is having an affair. The other mother you ran into in the schoolyard just learned that her daughter has a brain tumor. The barista who has been schlepping espresso to fund her dream just got the news that the book she spent five years writing just got rejected by another publisher. The young boy acting out in the restaurant just found out that Daddy is going to Iraq. The woman who cut you off in traffic just filed for divorce from her abusive husband. The waiter who forgot to bring you extra salad dressing just lost his son in a car accident.
As Plato said, ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’
This is an excerpt from the book The Anatomy of a Calling by Lissa Rankin, MD
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