Barack Obama

“My third piece of advice is to cultivate a sense of empathy – to put yourself in other people’s shoes – to see the world from their eyes. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.”

For this post I want to flip the idiom “walk a mile in my shoes” to “walk a mile in your shoes”.

I would like to ask you a question, what would I learn if I were to lace up in your shoes?

Would I:

• learn that you dread getting out of bed in the morning
• that even with taking meds your depression is still hanging there
• maybe how you think that nobody truly understands what you are struggling with
• or that sometimes you fantasize about killing yourself 
• those troublesome times when you just cannot concentrate on one thing for any length of time
• how you have panic attacks just thinking about leaving your home
• that between paying for your meds and therapy you have a hard time managing your other obligations

There are probably a myriad of other things I could learn if I were to walk for some time in your shoes. I just mentioned the ones that came to my mind at the time of writing this post.

So dear reader, if I could walk a mile in those shoes of yours would I have a better sense of what your life is truly like?