“You fell into the gutter at night? Yours is better; i fell in the day”

Let me paint a common scenario for you:

Biliki: "My father was so abusive. My journey into prostitution began when he raped me."

Adaku: "Eyah! Yours is even better. Mine would rape and still go ahead to preach against sexual immorality on Sundays. At least your father wasn't a pastor.”

And the winner of this unannounced bout? Adaku. Sadly, Biliki is still hurting and got no reprieve.

My earliest memory of this competition was a family member telling another who was in an abusive marriage "You own is better. He still pays the bills" as opposed to hers who left the bills to her.

I was amazed because here was a woman who had come to you pained and needing succour and empathy. Maybe even a listening ear would have done the trick. But no, you had to bring up your woes, too. You had to dismiss her pain and put yours first.

That was my first intro to the growing lack of empathy a lot of humans have. Sadly, we like to think we are but that is illusive.

I think this has its root in the mentality that a hurting person will be fine and toughen up if he hears about another with a worse tale; the mentality that all that is needed for healing to occur is exposure to worse circumstances.

So, Biliki is supposed to feel better and probably forgive her father because he wasn't a pastor like Adaku's dad and so didn't know better.

That woman in an abusive marriage is supposed to feel better because her husband is still responsible enough to pay the bills.

What a misleading ideology!

Empathy doesn't cost much. It makes no grandiose requirements. It asks of one thing: get over yourself and put the affected person's pain first.

You may have worse stories. Your situation might even be worse than the other's but empathy says: “forget all that. This person's pain is the biggest thing in the room right now.”

Simple, right but how many of us will do it?

We can learn to be empathetic. It just takes one thing: putting the other's pain first.

Yes you fell into the gutter during the day in the biggest market in Lagos but empathy says you should forget that for a moment, listen and provide succour.

That isn't too much to do, right?

Maryjane Okobi loves questioning the statutes of the gods and sharing her thoughts.

On days when she isn't looking for grammatical and punctuation errors through her coke-bottled lenses, she remembers why she's a student of nursing sciences and sleeps with Big Books.

She is a Grey's Anatomy addict, an unrepentant supporter of FC Barcelona and lover of good books.

Follow her on Instagram and Twitter - @maryjaneokobi