The Lost Capacity Of Empathy🔊

Once, in the heart of a bustling urban city lived an exceptionally successful lawyer named Richard. With a mesmerising personality, Richard was at the altitude of his career, impeccably winning every court battle he encountered. However, with his incessant focus on victory, Richard had lost his ability to empathise; to understand people and their feelings. This became his reputation - a brutally ruthless lawyer with an exterior of reinforced iron.

One day, a glimmering winter morning brought a peculiar case to Richard. A case of an old widow, Mrs. Granger who was accused of stealing bread from a local bakery. The impoverishment could be read clearly on the lines of Mrs. Granger's face. Richard's job was to prove her guilty and get her longer penalties. But, strangely he found himself empathising with her. He remembered his childhood days when his mother also used to create miracles with scarce resources just to feed him. However, suppressing his emotion under the professional blanket, Richard decided to treat this case like any other.

Days passed, Mrs. Granger's stolen item did not seem like a crime to Richard anymore. It started to look more like an act of survival - a war against hunger and privation. The dilemma was like a thorn, piercing his thoughts incessantly. The wheatish lines on Mrs. Granger's face echoed her years of struggle. With this growing empathy for Mrs. Granger, something inside Richard flickered. But, he knew he was in the middle of a battleground carrying the flag of the prosecution.

Finally, one day, standing in the courtroom, Richard was surrounded by familiar faces with anticipation dripping from their eyes. As he stood opposite Mrs. Granger, he found his vision blurred by a traveller's tear. That tear of unrequited struggle against the brutalities of life. It was the moment when Richard realised his lost ability, the ability to empathise.

Richard, with a fierce look, decided to flip the coin. He put forward evidence showing that Mrs. Granger was wrongfully accused, proving that the actual thief had falsely framed her. He used his sharp intellect and years of experience to turn the case upside down. The courtroom was filled with gasps and wide-eyed surprise. Richard came out victorious, not just in the eyes of the law, but also in his own.

From that day forward, Richard became a different person. The empathy he found within him turned out to be a priceless trait that transformed him from a ruthless lawyer to a compassionate professional with a heart. He began seeing more than just cases, he saw stories, he saw people, and he saw emotions.

In the end, it was not the countless victories that defined Richard, but the single case of Mrs. Granger where he found the true essence of justice. His journey was no longer about the mere wins but about sincere empathy, justice, and respect for the worth of human life. Every face he witnessed was no longer a streamlined case, but a life, a story - a familiar battle of their own.

And so, Richard won uncountable cases, but most importantly, he had won back something that he had lost; the capacity to empathise, the ability to feel the worth of a human life more than winning a mere argument.