Can we replace PITY with EMPOWERMENT please?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
When you see someone who lacks what most of us have, what feeling do you get? Do you feel pity or you feel like finding ways to empower them?
Honestly, most of the people feel pity and say , “oh, this girl is an orphan”, “oh, this boy is too poor” or even, “I feel so sad yaar for this guy. At times I wonder why god does this”.
Honestly, most of the people feel pity and say , “oh, this girl is an orphan”, “oh, this boy is too poor” or even, “I feel so sad yaar for this guy. At times I wonder why god does this”.
Most of whom I know feel pity on who they find unfortunate according to them. Unfortunate can be an adjective that means different things to different people. Most of what we come across are shortcomings that a person can overcome with minimal support. But, we feel pity may be because pity just is a feeling, not a call for action. We can go and talk to thousand people whom we know - I saw this girl and felt pity, but rarest of rare will go and counsel the girl, ask her how they can make a difference in her life, how they can help her come out of the pity situation to a situation of pride, how they can empower her!
What is empowerment to me? Simple, just get out of the comfort zone and do a very simple thing which can make a difference. When I pity someone, I don’t realize that actually I am making the person small by pitying. I make his image gloomy which has no worth and ability when we know that the person is equally capable of doing great things under right circumstances. Yes, I do agree, we may not be able to empower every person whom we feel pity about. But, is it very difficult to replace the word PITY with the words MOTIVATION or even INDIFFERENCE. Indifference is better because it would make them feel that they are no different, or no less, they can just do whatever others are capable of doing or what others are capable of achieving. I guess even a mere Indifference can rank higher than pity. Whom should we pity then? We can pity ourselves if we haven’t done any act of empowerment in our full life as we have not been able to utilize a power that is with all of us.
I guess we pity because it is easier to do than doing something more for someone. Mostly in our society of so called well cultured or culture rich families, the older people mostly are full of this emotion. When I was a kid of a single parent, my mom, most of these very social aunties used to pity me, “oh god, this girl is so unfortunate, no dad to support her, where is god? Bla bla bla(read nonsense)” I used to hate these words and was always tried not to show a single sign of sadness on my face in front of them, just to avoid those words full of pity. For a second, it used to make me feel sorry for myself...why me? (Just to mention, no one of them ever tried to help me achieve things in even a smallest way) Today, I am doing much better than what their children are doing after having all the ideal circumstances, and today I see a sense of Pride in their eyes when I meet them, and this is what I have waited for long.
To my surprise, I keep on meeting people everyday who are affected with the same bug – pity . Let me give you an example of one of my friend who belongs to elite class and they have declined a marriage alliance for the reason that the girl’s parent were divorced and the dad wasn’t with her.
I found it real funny honestly and here I got someone whom I should pity – people who are too social to be human. :) They end up again punishing the victim! Now this is what is called pity and punish!
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