THE SOUNDING BOARDS
“Empathy is like giving someone a psychological hug.” - Lawrence J M y friend, Mukesh, has been a popular Physics teacher. He loved the Physics subject both in school and college… and, when it came to choosing a career, he rightly chose to be a Physics teacher… Since that decision, Mukesh has taught Physics to thousands of students, mostly college students… and fired their imagination! Two days ago, Mukesh had come to me to discuss a problem he was grappling with. He was with me for nearly thirty minutes and, all that I did was just listen to him with empathy, sincerely… knowing fully that I had no answers to his problems… Yet, he had chosen me to be his sounding board… come to me and talk. In fact, Mukesh has been doing it quite often… Whenever his mind needed some clarity, he would come to people like me and talk… while we would simply listen, without judging him and without jumping to our conclusions, leave alone solutions. ...