Over the weekend I was extremely angry at a friend who flaked on me. A number of other friends told me I should just let it go and it wasn't worth being mad about. I don't think it is now, but honestly, that advice didn't help at all. And I thought back of the number of times I've talked to my students in therapy, or counselled friends about a variety of things. I've said and used that phrase so many times.

That "it isn't worth it" isn't really the point when one is feeling upset, or angry or frustrated. It may be the big picture overall, or the underlying question... is the action worth undertaking? Is the decision worth all that suffering? But in the moment of fluster, when all these feelings are swirling inside of you, ready to burst out and you try so hard to control it and understand those feelings, someone comes and tells you that "it isn't worth it", that essentially negates your experience, negates what you are feeling and negates all that you are trying to do about it. How discouraging. My feelings aren't worth it. Everything that I am feeling now is if no worth. So you try to slash everything that you feel in to what someone else tells you is worth feeling, or is the rational thing to do.

Too many times we negate someone else's feelings without thinking, without empathy for what that person is feeling. Therapy sometimes is a fluke because as therapist you think you have to play the objective role in the relationship with the client. As friends, we think we need to be the rational being, the pillar of strength and objectivity. But since when were humans logical and rational at all times? Empathy is a seldom used word in therapy and in friendships. It is a seldom understood feeling. As human beings we have the capacity to understand the "other" as self, to not only understand what the other person is going through, but we can also live and relive what that person is going through in our heads. We have the capacity to experience what the other person feels, to walk in their shoes if we so permit our minds to do so. And yet we don't. We don't permit ourselves to understand that. I know I always end up alluding to to what the "logical" self should do in a particular situation.

Western philosophical tradition has since debunked Cartesian positivistic stance on existence. We know we do not exist because we think. Logical thought is not the basis of existence, but Descartes continues to hold a powerful grip over us. He lives in our lives presenting the Cartesian anxiety that we hold on to daily. Either it is right or it is wrong. Either it is worth it or it is not. But if it is not worth it, if it is not right, then what?

Experience is the very meaning of our existence. And experience is made up of the very things we feel, the stories in our minds, our memories, the way we narrate an event to ourselves or to someone else. When someone tells you that they feel crappy because of something that happened, and you turn around to say, that feeling's not worth it, or that event does not or should not generate such a response from you, it is analagous to saying that their very existence at that point holds no meaning whatsoever, that the meaning they created for themselves was wrong.

And that begs the question too. If it is wrong, what is right then? Often times, no one can tell you.

Which brings me back to the point on empathy. If one looks at the other as self, tries to understand, to generate dialogue that brings greater understanding, not judgement, not solutions, then therapy and consolation takes a different concept. We don't draw conclusions. We draw understanding. That's not to say that we should dwell on a point or not come to conclusion at all. But conclusion comes from understanding, and understanding comes from our capacity to empathise, to put ourselves in that position, to also derive meaning from the experience and the feelings that the other person is going through.