I was chatting with a friend the other day about the stock market and my view that we are on the verge of a precipice. I am pretty sure the markets are about to go off a cliff and I anticipate a huge sell off in equities. I also believe the housing market is going to crash. So as I was energetically outlining my thesis of what is to happen, my girlfriend said, “You are so negative!” That stopped me dead, and I found I felt confused by her reaction. I could not stop thinking about it all day.
Each of us has a world view. We see things through a lens that is formed by our life experiences, our culture, and our personality. The trouble we run into is it is easy to forget this and we tend to assume that everyone “sees” things as we do. I am actually not pessimistic about the stock market at all! Or the housing market. Quite the opposite in fact! I am excited about it.
You see, for me, the “doom and gloom” my friend thought I was purveying was enthusiasm for knowing (or believing I know) what the near future holds. I see
opportunity to control my own destiny. I see change coming. Good change – and I
want to share that with those I care about so they too can take advantage.
In my opinion the stock market is overvalued, and I have been sitting on cash for quite some time waiting to buy back in when good companies are “on sale.” I mean really, who doesn't like a blue light special? I wrongly assumed that everyone would want to know about it. And when house prices come down they will be more affordable – and that is not a bad thing - young people who have been priced out of the market will be able to take advantage and so will I. By knowing that the housing bubble is about to pop I have the opportunity to sell high, before prices tank, not only saving my equity, but giving me the chance to buy back in at a better price. Unfortunately, what is good for some is bad for others, and what I conveyed to my friend was received as doom and gloom even though my intent was quite the opposite. The problem was in my assumption that she thinks like I do.
As I ponder this I wonder how many marriages have failed, how many friendships broken, how many children disillusioned, how many siblings estranged all because of our inability to empathize. Most of us are good at sympathy, that is, taking part in another’s emotions: feeling sorrow or happiness for what someone is experiencing. But empathy, on the other hand, is hard. Empathy requires us to put aside our own world view, our own morals, our own values and our own experiences and actually understand someone’s actions or feelings as though they were our own. We have to put on their glasses.
Is it possible that the Beatles had it wrong? Perhaps all we really need is empathy.
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