Striking the Right Balance

I was listening to Oprah Winfrey’s interview which she did few years back where she was talking about empathy and she said,” When I was a news reporter it was so unnatural for me to cover somebody’s tragedies and difficulties and not feel anything about it. I would go back after a fire; I would take blankets for people.” She later on adds that her boss said to her that you have to just report, and you cannot be so empathetic and that felt unnatural to her. This got me thinking about, till what extent empathy, being sensitive is good and where do you draw that line where it becomes a burden for you. By definition, being empathetic is showing an ability to understand and share the feelings of another person.

Empaths are usually sensitive people who are over thinkers and over analyzers. They are highly intuitive, creative and are people who feel everything deeply. People who know me well know that I am an overthinker and a sensitive person. I can have sleepless nights over an issue which others might think trivial. I can be highly disturbed while reading a book or watching a movie and think about that for the next few days. This is certainly something which I am not proud of but along with the positives of being an empath, there are negatives too.

Even though this may not be true every time, there is enough research done which proves that women in general are more empathetic than men. People in creative professions tend to have more empathy. But like I mentioned earlier about myself, being too empathetic or sensitive can be a problem. I have faced the problems earlier and I still do. As a parent I keep thinking how do I inculcate these qualities of being the ‘right amount’ of empath in my child.

Similar to being the right amount of empath, Kedar and I have often discussed about being the right amount of ‘selfish’. How do you achieve a right balance between being selfish and selfless? Even though the word selfish has a negative connotation, it is not always a bad thing. In this same video Oprah says, “you can only give if you are full yourself”. This is in context where the interviewer asked her that people might think you are too full of yourself. I thought it was a very interesting concept. Although it is important to help others and think about them, at times it is also very vital to put your priorities first and get things moving for you. As parents we think about imbibing certain qualities which make the children considerate, thoughtful and emotionally intelligent but it should not be to the extent where it is detrimental for them. They also need to learn to fight for themselves and be selfish at times.

Along the same lines there is achieving the right balance between being passionate about something and then being detached at the same time. When you go about attaching all your happiness or sorrow with your work, your relationships or anything else, you put yourself at risk. It is very difficult to strike the right balance between being passionate yet detached at the same time.

This blog is more of a loud thinking which I have done for myself as an individual and also as a parent. Everyone is different as a person and grows up having their own experiences. Not necessary that every child needs to be taught to be empathetic, sensitive and selfless…. some children who naturally have those qualities might need some other qualities to balance them. I wonder how this ‘achieving the right balance’ kind of thing can be taught to children at home or in school.