No
speck of Empathy
Empathy
is being aware of another person’s feelings, and understanding how or why they
feel a certain way. Empathy seems to be
learned but is also naturally felt as well.
From a young age a child can feel empathetic towards certain events,
situations, and people. The child’s
parents still must teach them to be empathetic towards certain things the child
may not understand. Even though empathy
is a natural feeling, some people just don’t show empathy nor do they feel
it. I have had to deal with
un-empathetic people in my life, and they were people I would have never
expected; my grandparents.
My
mom’s parents have never showed empathy towards us in what they say or do. They recently told us that they no longer
want anything to do with us and that we are not allowed to show up at either
one of their funerals. All of this was
over the fact we live 4 ½ hours away and don’t get to see them a lot. They say things like that with no sense of
what they are doing to themselves plus others.
The saddest part is that they don’t care how it affects us at all. This isn’t the first time they have said
things without an idea of how much it can affect someone. They have said many things to us that hurt a
lot. They hate my dad and make it clear
to us, as well as my brother and I. It
has affected me in a way that every year my sister gets a card and money from them for
her birthday, but I don’t. It’s not even
the money though, I don’t care about that.
I would at least like a card or a call wishing me a happy birthday
rather than a blatant disregard for it.
They do things without putting themselves in others shoes beforehand.
My
grandparents were people who were supposed to guide me to make good choices in
my life and set examples for me. They
did the complete opposite though. I grew
up in a house always being told to not do something because my grandparents
would do that and it isn’t right. I
don’t know why they don’t show any empathy, but I wish they did. I feel as if I don’t even have grandparents
because my dad’s father is dead and my mom’s parents refuse to talk to me. They don’t even know where I currently attend
school, and didn’t even know my brother was in high school. Empathy is found in most people, but some
people either don’t have any or just choose to not show it.
Reflection:
I
did not really enjoy this paper at all.
The guidelines were a 500 word essay, and in my opinion 500 words are
way too little to get a good topic or point across. I felt restricted and confined as to how much
I could put in my paper. My personal
story sounded dull and uninteresting because if I added detail to my story it
would’ve gone over the 500 words. The
guidelines did not allow for enough of a story to come out in such a small paper. A little more elbow room and I could’ve had a
pretty nice paper.
If the paper had been 3-5 pages
instead of just 500 words I feel I could’ve produced a paper way better than
the one I did. The first draft I had a
four page paper that was way to long and my groupmates told me to cut down most
of it. The second draft was one and a
half pages and was a boring story that fit into the 500 words guideline. I’m hoping for the final draft that maybe the
word count will change and be raised a little bit because I’m confident I can
make the paper way better if it is.
The in class assignments helped a
little bit, but not much. I felt like I
was too busy trying to make sure I had the right amount of words rather than
using the techniques we learned. I could
have used many more rhetorical techniques to make my paper more interesting,
and they could’ve been used to help add detail in.
All in all I don’t believe my first
drafts of this paper were strong at all.
The first paper I messed up because I didn’t realize it had to be a
personal narrative, I thought it was just a narrative. The second draft was a personal narrative but
it was just dull and boring. This
assignment didn’t allow me to be able to use all of my writing skills and
techniques to the fullest. I’m hoping
that the next assignment will allow for a little more freedom.
