In the article entitled “Perspective Taking: Misstepping Into Others’ Shoes”, Nicholas Epley and Eugene Caruso discussed the importance of perspective taking to the interactions between human beings, and also mentioned the common mistakes made in perspective taking. This ability is also called empathy in my mind, which is mentioned a lot by people. However, for me, common mistakes made in perspective taking or missteps are unavoidable to some degree given the difference of people in terms of family background, education and social classes. It is one reason for the diversity of the society. Otherwise, the world will be too same for all people when one is to interpret what others think precisely. Therefore, it is key for people to be aware of those missteps. With such understanding, they will find that it is easy to understand others instead of being too picky. But it is wrong to ask all the people to master and carry out perspective taking very well. This is a denial and disrespect of individuality of persons. However, I still agree that the basic ability to carry out the perspective taking is still key for the human beings, as it unites people together.
In the article, Paul discussed the difficulty when it comes to the prognosis given by the doctor, and the torture of himself when he heard the uncertain statistics. The obsession with statistics is the major problem troubling Paul. It shows the phenomenon that most patients are quite obsessed with the data but the doctor can not give them a precise one. This reveals a fundamental difference between the mentality of the patient and the doctor. It become contradictory after a lot of people become ill. They will become optimistic and pessimistic, strong and weak, and brave and timid. They hope to get some certain answer about their life in the future from the doctor. However, the doctor fails to give such answers as there are difference between individual cases. Therefore, all can be provided are just a range. This just brings more doubts and worry to the patient in fact. It is suggested to change the mentality and the obsession of all the data after one is sick or having a major disease. The obsession with data may only highlight the stress and depression felt by the patient. Thus, to pay more attention to people that one cares instead of the number is a better option in fact.
