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: Do you think that empathy has become more important in this time of the pandemic and increased awareness of social and racial injustice, the election, etc.?
: No, I don’t think it’s more important. I think it’s always been important. What I think has happened is that it’s become more evident that we need to have it. We’re lacking empathy and we need to get better at it, so I think we need to understand why
people think the way they think. What I see quite often is people, again, making those assumptions that we all think the same, especially now that we’re on Zoom a lot. We don’t pick up on a lot of each other’s body language, so we all assume that when it comes to whatever topic is being discussed, we all feel the same way. That’s not always true, so why don’t we think the same way?
I see people reach out on Facebook saying, “Alright, so this is how I think about this topic. I know most of you disagree with me on that, but I want to understand why.” I see people trying to reach out and it just disintegrates so quickly. Especially with politics, I think people feel very personal about their opinions, which start to become more of their whole person instead of just one of the things about them. It becomes more of who that inner person is and part of their personality, and I think that’s when we just get so rigid and think, “This is the right way to think of things!” We need to let go of that and really understand why we each think the way we think.
When it comes to my husband and two of his friends, one person is on one end of the political spectrum, one is kind of in the middle, and the other is all the way at the other end. The three of them do a very good job of talking about their thoughts their feelings without fighting. When I’ve seen them talk, I feel like they each walk away thinking, “I haven’t changed my mind, but I understand a little bit more about why they think the way they do.”
: As you said, it’s become more evident that we need empathy, so when we get past this pandemic and the coexisting crises, do you think we’ll still see the same focus on empathy that we do now?
: I don’t think it’s going to be the same focus that we see right now, but I don’t think it’s going to go back to how we were. I think empathy used to be seen as a “fluffy” topic. Well, I think there is a little bit more understanding and empathy now, and we just need to keep sharing it and showing it. I’m also hoping that our leaders, especially the ones we have at Land O’Lakes, who’ve done a very good job of modeling empathy, continue that. It’s not just an event: it’s about how we continue to model.
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