Empathy in Today's World

Good afternoon!

This was a much better week for Tyler.  His belly issues cleared up and he was feeling much better by  the middle of the week.  The consensus is that Tyler has returned to his "old smiling self" which is music to my ears.

I try not to get preachy with my posts but I do have a particular subject in mind.  It seems the longer I am on this earth the less empathy that I see.  That is to say people are considering the feelings of others less and less.  It is almost as they we creating a culture where putting yourself in someone else's shoes is labeled as "political correctness" and then shunned.

Many people think nothing of parking in a handicap parking spot because they are just running in for a minute.  We turn our heads to the real atrocities in this world like hunger, war, child trafficking, and missing persons to more fashionable and trivial topics.  Perhaps it's our way of protecting ourselves from the really painful truths that play out in front of us.

We pay athletes 100s of millions of dollars to catch a ball and yet we continue to cut special needs funding on a regular basis.  We despritely need more research and funding to stop cancer, Alzheimer's, ALS, Autism, etc. because so many of our friends and family members are suffering and need better care.  But sadly we have created a system which makes billions of dollars on the treatments and not the cures.  Too many people are making too much money keeping people sick.

We have to wake up and stop thinking only of ourselves.  I believe we will be judged by how we treated the least fortunate among us.  Do we take care of our sick children?  Do we fight for those with disabilities and try to make their lives better?  When we get a leg up do we turn around and reach down to help pull the next person up?  Do we empathize with our neighbor and try to make their lives better regardless of their religion, color, and beliefs?  Or do we stand in judgment of them with a our noses up?

Perhaps this is one reason I love Tyler so much.  Materialism means nothing to him.  Nor does color, a persons beliefs, who they love, or anything else like that.  He loves those who love him and respects those who respects him.  I think that makes him far superior to most of us.

Be well and God bless.  Tom