TIB

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.