Betty Hart: How compassion could save your strained relationships | TED

95,599 views ・ 2021-03-26

TED


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I am unabashedly a daddy's girl.
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My daddy is the first person to have told me that I was beautiful.
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He often told me that he loved me,
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and he was one of my favorite people in the entire world,
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which was why it was really challenging
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to discover that we had a deep ideological divide
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that was so sincere and so deep
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that caused me to not talk to him for 10 years.
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Before the term was coined,
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I canceled my father.
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In the last few years,
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cancel culture has of course come into great prominence.
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It's existed throughout time,
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but cancel culture in the bigger society
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is when a person in prominence says or does something
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that we, the people, disagree with,
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and the decision is made to make them persona non grata.
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They are done.
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They are not to be revered.
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They are not to be a part of our world anymore.
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And that is in the public realm.
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I'm going to talk to you today about the private realm.
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When we choose to cancel the people in our circle,
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the people in our core,
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the people who love us and who we love,
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and it has been mutually beneficial,
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but due to a deep and sincere ideological divide,
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we make the decision to cancel them out of our lives.
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I want to suggest that cancel culture needs to change,
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and instead we need to move to compassion culture.
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But before I go there,
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let me tell you two of the premises that exist
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when we indulge in cancel culture.
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One, we have to believe that we're right.
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A hundred percent,
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no possibility of being wrong.
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And two, the other person,
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the person we're going to cancel,
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clearly does not have the ability
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to change, to grow, to develop.
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Obviously, both of these are problematic
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because sometimes we're not right.
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I don't know about you, but there have been times in my life
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when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was right
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only to discover that I was wrong,
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badly wrong, completely missed the mark.
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So if it could happen to me and perhaps it's happened to you,
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perhaps it could happen to others.
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The second is a little even more challenging
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because I know that I've changed over the years.
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Haven't we all?
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Though the core parts of Betty have pretty much stayed the same,
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there have been key elements that have changed drastically.
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The Betty of eight years old was not the same as the Betty of 18,
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which was not the same as 28, which was not the same as 38.
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I've changed.
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And if I'm able to change,
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shouldn't I extend grace to believe that others can change too?
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So what should we do?
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Instead of canceling people, we should use the tool called compassion.
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I find the definition of compassion is a fascinating one.
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And it's not one that I hear people talk about.
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Compassion means to suffer with someone.
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To suffer alongside them.
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Imagine.
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When someone, say, Grandpa,
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says that thing that's caused you to decide
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he's no longer invited to Thanksgiving,
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what if instead we chose to suffer alongside him?
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We decided that our love was so big, so deep, so strong
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that we were willing to suffer,
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even when it could be potentially painful.
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Now let's be clear.
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I am not denying anyone's right to cancel anyone else.
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What I'm suggesting is that maybe that's not the best way.
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When we think about the situation with Grandpa at Thanksgiving,
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if we choose to cancel him,
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we are no longer in proximity to him.
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Not only do we not get to hear his point of view,
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we don't get to share ours.
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What if we're the only person,
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because of our deep connection and love and affection for our grandfather --
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and substitute anyone you choose.
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What if we're the ones to plant seeds of change,
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seeds of influence,
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seeds of difference.
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Now, to be fair,
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I cannot promise you that just because you plant the seed,
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that it will get water,
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that it'll get any sunlight or even a little fertilizer.
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But what I can tell you is that if you don't plant it,
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who will?
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I find it interesting,
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this idea of suffering alongside someone.
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It means that we are choosing to value the totality of the person
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rather than one particular aspect,
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like a framework or a mindset or a belief system.
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We're choosing to believe that the entire person is more valuable
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than any of the individual parts.
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And I found an amazing duo who demonstrated this beautifully.
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Perhaps you've heard of them.
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The late justices
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia
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were close, close friends.
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And they were completely divided in terms of belief systems.
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In fact, Antonin Scalia once said,
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"What's not to like, other than her thoughts on the law."
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He believed she was wrong.
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She believed he was wrong.
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They did not shift in that point of view whatsoever.
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And yet they had tea together every week,
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and every New Year's Eve,
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they spent it together with their families.
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They went on family vacations together.
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They chose to suffer with each other rather
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than to cancel each other.
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Their love and respect for each other
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continued to grow,
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even though they never saw eye to eye.
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I imagine that curiosity might be a part of that.
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That if we choose to be curious about that which is different,
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we might discover something along the way.
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After all, if we are who we are because of our lived experiences,
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isn't that true for someone else?
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And have we ever decided to use that tool of empathy,
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of walking a mile or so in someone else's shoes
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to really discover the context for why they believe what they believe?
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Now, by now you're probably saying,
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"Yeah, OK, Betty, this sounds good.
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But what about you?
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What about you and your dad?"
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It's a fair question.
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After 10 years of not talking to my dad,
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I picked up the phone one day, called him and said,
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"I bet if it were up to you,
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you'd probably go back in time and change some things.
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I know I would.
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But since we can't,
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how about we start again?"
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And he said,
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"Yes, because I love you.
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I always have. And I always will."
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I am so grateful that I made that call
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because there was no way for me to know
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that a few years later my dad would develop Alzheimer's.
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And a few years after that he would die.
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And we never saw eye to eye about the thing that divided us,
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ever.
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But our love continued.
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It continued through those 10 years when we didn't speak
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and it continued in the six years after.
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So I am encouraging us to become a society of people
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that choose compassion over canceling.
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I'm asking us to consider
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that curiosity might be a better practice.
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That we might choose empathy,
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that we might choose to have a love that is so deep, so wide,
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so strong that it can surpass differences.
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Why are we so scared of differences anyway?
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I also want us to be a people that plant seeds,
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seeds of change, seeds of influence,
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seeds of diversity.
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Again, I cannot promise to you or anyone else
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that planting that seed is going to make a difference.
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But what if it does?
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I am the sum of who I am
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because of everything that I've been exposed to.
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My mind has changed over the years
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and grown because of the people in my life who planted seeds in me,
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some that I saw and some that I didn't.
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So wouldn't it be great
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if instead of having a cancel culture
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we create a compassion culture
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where we are willing to suffer alongside the ones we love,
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because we love them.
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And can't we become a community that plants seeds?
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After all, if we don't, who will?
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Thank you.
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