Design Thought #1: Empathy is the Ultimate Superpower
If you could pick one superpower, what would it be?
Put yourself in someone else’s shoes
At it’s simplest, empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. You’re able to share those feelings with that person, which will help inform you in how to do the right thing given any situation.
That’s why I believe that empathy is the ultimate superpower.
Once you practice empathy. You’ll do the right thing.
Everyone says that you have to “do the right thing”. But how do you really know what’s the “right thing”? Is it what our parents say? Is it what we learn from religion?
To be honest, I don’t know if you can say there is a pre-defined “right thing”. But when you know, you just know.
I believe that this subconscious “knowing” is actually an accumulation of your empathetic responses to various situations. When I can better understand how other’s are feeling, I always get a gut feeling of knowing what’s the right thing to do.
One time, my friend was sending a number of passive aggressive text messages. At first, I was taken aback with the tone. I hadn’t done anything to piss them off, but they were being extremely rude.
I took a step back and remembered that he had just applied for his dream job a few weeks prior. So I asked if he had any news about the job.
Unfortunately, he just got rejected and wasn’t in a good mood. I very well could have reacted to those messages and called him out for being rude. But I knew that the right thing to do was to talk to him and just lend an ear.
It’s ok if you make mistakes.
Just like anything else, getting good at something takes practice. That means developing empathy for others in various social situations also takes practice.
Sometimes, you’ll say the wrong things but instead of beating yourself up over it or making things more awkward, just apologize with sincerity. 99% of the time, you’ll be able to move on.
If you learn from those mistakes, you’ll know how to better understand and help people in those difficult situations.
Remember: You affect everyone around you.
When you’re empathetic, you can make a huge impact in people’s lives. Practicing empathy around your friends and family means that you can better understand and respond to the crazy milestones in life. You’ll know how it feels when your buddy finally gets that huge promotion, or when a loved one goes through a difficult breakup.
But practicing empathy doesn’t just happen in social situations.
As a product designer, I know that it’s impossible for us to understand everything about the world. There’s no way we can codify every single cultural nuance in every single native tongue, and then make an impactful solution. But I believe that we are able to create impactful solutions for people all around the world by using empathy.
When I imagine myself in someone’s else’s shoes, I feel like I am better at understanding how they feel and why they do the things to do. Sure, sometimes those shoe never fit perfectly, but I know that I’m still taking one small step at a time to design new ways to help others.
Do you agree? What do you think is the ultimate superpower? Feel free to reach out: iamtedko@gmail.com
