Walking in Someone Else's Shoes

We need a new national holiday: “Walk a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes” Day. Such a day is necessary because we are losing the capability to imagine what the world is like for anyone other than ourselves.

On this day, we would be given a picture and story of who we will be that day—someone of a different race, age, sexual orientation, social class, health status, or body type, for example. I’m sure that computer programmers could develop a video game that would illustrate the challenges faced by our avatar as he or she attempts to get a job after being released from prison, access health care without insurance, or get on a bus when confined to a wheelchair. After exercising our imagination, we would then vote in our regional, state, and national elections (or face penalties for not fulfilling this critical civic duty).

As Margaret Atwood noted, “Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings.” Imagining the full humanity of others is only the first step to overcoming oppression, however. As Albert Einstein said, we must then overcome the “optical delusion” that we are separate from everyone and everything else that lives. As Chief Seattle so eloquently observed, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

It’s not surprising that empathy is dwindling in our world, because it isn’t easy to feel the pain of others. But without empathy we don’t feel their joys either, and we become imprisoned in our own very limited perspective of what the world encompasses. Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes (or boots or sandals or flip-flops) is a time-honored practice of appreciating what it means to be part of the Body of Christ and to live a fully realized life. Let's get walking.