2nd PE Assignment: Esther Ra

“Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.” Cornel West, a Princeton professor, thus spoke about empathy—that quality we need to love our neighbors, destroy prejudice, and see through other’s eyes. It was an ordinary incident in my childhood that helped me understand this pithy remark.
I was in elementary school. Two boys had caught several frogs, and without any malicious intent, they stuffed the frogs into tiny bottles filled with water. The overcrowded, breathless frogs thrashed frantically as the boys ran excitedly around the classroom, shaking the bottles and showing their prize to anyone who cared to see the piteous sight. I was pleading with them to let the frogs go when our teacher snatched the bottles away and said, “I’d better throw these smelly things away.”
“Oh, please, could you give them to me?” I begged. “There’s a pond near my house where I could free them.”
The teacher wrinkled her nose. “What a waste of time. They’ll be dead by then.”
I said softly, “But if they might live…”
The teacher shrugged dubiously, but handed me the bottles. As school was now over, I hastily ran to the aforementioned pond. Once there, I crouched down and unscrewed the lid. Three stunned frogs fell into the mud and twitched their tortured limbs.
“You are alive!” I cried happily. “Ribbit,” the frogs croaked feebly, and suddenly, as if united in one wish for freedom and fresh water, they unanimously turned and bounded into the pond. The sight of those frogs leaping into the wind-stirred pond in one swift, joyous jump was one of the simplest yet most beautiful sights I have ever seen. I stayed near the pond for several minutes, watching the frogs with deep delight. It was then that I understood empathy. It was benevolence, not benignity; it was active compassion rather than languid pity. A single honest action is worth a thousand cambric-handkerchief tears, and it is the grimy sweat of work that matters. If I had given up the frogs as dead when the teacher told me so, or been content with squealing, “Oh, poor things”, those frogs would certainly have died. It has been years since I’ve let those frogs free, but the lesson I learned that day is one I still live by now. It was the memory of those frogs jumping into the pond that prompted me to painstakingly collect hundreds of dollars in middle school to help North Korean refugees instead of being contented with writing novels for them; it was the recollection of the joy I felt that day which made me reach out time and time again to fight for what I felt was right. Through the rest of my life, I hope to find more opportunities of helping those in need more efficiently, effectively, and – yes – with more empathy.