What does it mean to "put yourself in another person's shoes"? What personal qualities are necessary to be able to see things as someone else does?
Putting yourself in someone elses shoes means seeing things from their perspective. Its generally used when people get into disagreements, and seeing things from another viewpoint helps resolve the dispute, because then you understand why the other person is acting like that, and you tend to be more willing to compromise after that.
I think that some important qualities people should have are to be flexible, to be open, to be accepting and to be diverse. All these qualities are useful because are rigid, they tend to confine themselves to a very narrow path, and reject others mindsets simply because they do not follow your path. I think that that makes you a very difficult person to work with because you are unwilling to diversify and open up other paths, which could potentially be better than your own narrow path.
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6 comments:
Hi Kenneth,
I agree with your viewpoints on to see things from others perspective. You should give some examples on this. Also, you may want to talk about "to put yourself into someone's shoe" in To Kill a Mockingbird context. I like how you talk about important qualities but perhaps you can talk about how one can be flexible, to be open, to be accepting,etc.
Dear Kenneth,
I do agree with all of your qualities stated. However, the meaning of putting oneself in another person's shoes can also be used to understand others and not just be used mainly for resolving a dispute. Normally, to resolve a dispute, only a third person would put themselves in both parties shoes and not the people who are involved. You could also add examples to each of your qualities, as you have only stated the qualities and not elaborate about them and why they are important. Lastly, you could also state some examples from the book about when a character has place themselves in another character's shoe and perhaps describe it.
Done by:Gordon
Hi Kenneth,
I agree with your point on a person having to diversify, but i think you should give examples in relation to "To Kill A Mockingbird". Also, i believe that when you put yourselves in another person's shoes, you may not always be able to understand them as there are always some things that are kept from others that may affect their thinking. Also when you understand others, you do not always tend to compromise as some of them think very selfishly.
Dear Kenneth,
Although I agree with your point that putting oneself into another persons shoes is a good way to resolve disputes, I feel that even though you may be able to understand the reasons for the actions of the other party, you may not be able to understand him well or come up with a solution to the dispute any better. This is because a person is unable to understand another persons way of thinking just by looking at the other persons situation. There are many different types of logic and mindsets in the world. There are certain prejudices that are bred in a person that are very hard to get rid of. For example, lets say a fictional character Oliver just hates people with sharp noses because he was bullied by an aunt with a sharp nose in his childhood. Later on in life, he is employed by a man with a sharp nose. If we put ourselves into his shoes, we can see why Oliver would feel more stress than his colleagues with the same workload and so he is more liable to lose his temper in the workplace. However, if we were Oliver's boss, we would not know this and we would likely fire him.
I would just like to point out some problems with your method of putting ourselves in another's shoes to resolve problems, but I also feel that the qualities you mentioned, to be flexible, to be open, to be accepting and to be diverse, are quite important if we are to understand other people.
I agree with you and I would like to add on.
Other than just seeing things from another person's perspective, we understand and feel what they actually feel about things and experiences. This helps us to understand a person better and will be able to interact with him or her easily. This also helps us to be more sensitive about other people's feelings and thoughts, so as to not provoke or insult him or her.
Goh Xian Fong 2I1
Hello Kenneth,
I agree with your blog post.
When viewing things from another person's point of view, we feel what he or she feels and we understand what he or she is going through, so we should try to understand why the conflict started in the first place. By comparing your own point of view with him or her, you can fully understand the situation, and thus resolve the problem.
Best regards,
Alton
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