Grasshopper
at Norfolk Park, Paddington, London, GB
Photo
by Jonathan Acuña
Sympathy for
the one Who Writes?
What’s really
going on?
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Post 328
Sympathy can be defined as “the perception,
understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. This
empathic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint, from a personal
perspective to the perspective of another group or individual who is in need” (Wikipedia.Com, 2019) . But should sympathy
be called as so when you start trying to perceive, comprehend and react to the
distress you may be undergoing?
As a very season educator, who has
been in the teaching business for over 25 years, I have come to a point in my career
that it seems like a stuck and stagnated spot in my professional life timeline.
It looks like there are moments in which the life of an expert becomes a void, a
sort of an empty cavity that cannot be filled with just being in a classroom
for a monthly wage. This vacuity is just taking over your great moments in class
when teaching, and then everything is nothing but a puzzling crossroad that
presents a dilemma for you to solve to go on. Have you felt like this before?
I’m not sure you whether you have
listened to the 1968 song by Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil
Why am I talking of all these things?
The answer is simple; at some point we are bound to feel that things are not OK
and that everything is doing down the drain. Yet, this is not true. As someone
with a growth mindset, you just have to look for ways to make your professional
life shine again and make your teaching life more enjoyable than before. And in
my very personal case, going back to my writing, learning something new while
taking a course, working hard to achieve professional goals, and discussing
academically with peers can provide us with a new sense of fulfillment.
Do we then have to be sympathetic with
ourselves? Sympathy is a human need, and there is no reason why we cannot be
sympathetic and empathic with what we perceive and comprehend and how we react to the distress one undergoes.
If you are a religious person, prayers can be good for our souls, especially
when you family and friends can also give you a hand. And if you are an
atheist, this is just a vacuum that can be cleaned with some positive thinking
where family and friends can also be handy.
References
Jagger, M., & Keith, R. (1968). Sympathy for the
Devil [Recorded by R. Stones]. London, England.
Wikipedia.Com. (2019,
May 13). Retrieved from Sympathy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathy
Sunday, July 14, 2019
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