Change Your Shoes

Change your shoes. 

I know for some, especially women, shoes can almost become an obsession. I'm afraid due to my practical nature my shoe collection probably pales next to most. 

However, as I thought about shoes, I couldn't help, but consider them more metaphorically. When I first began teaching I was always looking for ways to encourage my students to write. This was long before it was officially part of the curriculum, and my students wrote for the pure enjoyment it brought. 

One of the prompts we used was to consider what it must be like to walk in the shoes of another. Typical of the times some of the shoes we included were Princess Diana and Tony Dorsett. Either way it allowed my second graders an opportunity to look at the world through the eyes of someone else. 

I must admit that I can fall short in this category. I can be quick to jump to conclusions and criticize. It is not my proudest quality. However, as easy as it is to do, the truth is that we really don't know why people act as they do.  

Maybe not being so quick to judge, and as St. Francis encouraged us to do, we should first seek to understand. In doing so, we might be able to offer comfort to someone going through a difficult time. 

Putting yourself in another's shoes requires empathy and compassion, but in doing so it can help change the way we look as others, as well as ourselves. 

"Don't judge until you've walked a mile in someone else's shoes."
Nadia La Russa