Value People for How They Treat You, Not for Their Beliefs
In this society, it seems like if you’re not with me, you’re against me. Therefore, it is important to value people for how they treat you, instead of for their beliefs. At the end of the day, a belief is a state of mind in which we assume that the knowledge or the experience we have about a certain event or object is true.
Beliefs describe the educational and cultural context of individuals. But the way these individuals treat others shows something more personal: their capacity for empathy. How we treat others says a lot about ourselves.
Empathy is the ability to perceive what another person could be feeling. It also involves putting ourselves into their shoes and adopting their scale of priorities. It can be divided into affective and cognitive. Affective empathy is the ability to respond with an appropriate feeling to another’s mental states. On the other hand, cognitive empathy is the ability to understand another person’s point of view or mental state.
Empathetic people make others feel understood, listened to, and emotionally cared for. From a psychological point of view, how we interact with others is a more determining factor in the affective bonds that we create than the beliefs we hold dear.
“Beliefs are involuntary. Nothing involuntary is meritorious or condemnable. A man cannot be considered better or worse for his beliefs.”
-Percy Bysshe Shelley-
All the information we receive and the way that we organize the world, it all passes through our perceptive filter. Our interpretation of the reality which surrounds us is the product of our personal baggage. Baggage in the form of expectations, necessities, and values.