28 May Walking in Someone Else’s Shoes
Ella and I wear the same size shoes now, and we have a few identical pairs. This afternoon, I slip hers on without realizing and head toward the mailbox.
Something feels off almost immediately. Wrong in small, specific ways. Tight where I expect give. Loose where I want support. My foot doesn’t settle into the shape. I notice each step.
I think, I don’t like these. How unfortunate that her pair isn’t as good as mine. These aren’t right at all.
And then I realize—they are right.
For her.
We often use “walking in someone else’s shoes” as a kind of shorthand for empathy. As if understanding comes from imagining what it would feel like if their experience were ours.
But even here, in the same pair of shoes, the experience is still my own. My stride. My balance. The way I move.
What I felt wasn’t insight into her experience in those shoes. It was a version of it, filtered through me.
And that’s where we get empathy wrong.
We replace someone else’s experience with our best guess of what it would feel like for us. It sounds close. It feels generous. But it isn’t theirs.
Empathy is the discipline of accuracy. It asks me to listen for what it is actually like for her to walk in those shoes, in her words, not mine. And to hold that understanding without reshaping it into something that fits me better.
When we try to be empathic, we don’t walk in someone else’s shoes, even when we do.
We listen long enough to understand what it’s like to walk in theirs.