Ayesha Mahomed 11D – Third Place
Do you have a favourite route to work or school? Is it the one with the least traffic lights, stop signs, speed bumps, potholes, the one that’s downhill all the way or perhaps, at the risk of making my audience uncomfortable, the one where you avoid people tapping at your windows?
We’ve all seen their signs, “no work, no food”. Most people don’t just drive past; they actively look away, they look down to check the time, glance at the dashboard, swap lanes or drive forward, effectively making the person invisible to avoid the heavy burden of another human’s struggle. It isn’t about giving money; it’s the refusal to acknowledge a shared humanity. We are too consumed by the pressures of our own lives, or perhaps we have become so desensitised that even watching human suffering in 10-second clips no longer fazes us.
Empathy feels like it’s long dead, and we are left in a state of apathy.
In 2011, researchers at the University of Chicago conducted an experiment to determine whether a rat would release another rat from a cage without being given a reward. The answer was yes. After several sessions, the rats learned to unlock the cage quickly and intentionally.
Even more astonishing, when the rats were presented with 2 cages, one containing a rat and the other, chocolate, they opened both cages and typically shared the chocolate!
Rats, compared to evolved and complex beings such as humans? If even animals can show empathy to one another, what has humanity become that we struggle to care for our own? This is not an ephemeral issue. It is growing — rapidly, silently — just like the number of unread messages on our phones.
There are many reasons for this, but three stand out: Toxic hustle culture. The desensitising nature of social media. And the paradox of global connectivity.
Firstly, we are taught that our worth is measured by external parameters: status, productivity, wealth, job, race, gender, and class. It’s as though society has built invisible ladders and placed each of us on different rungs. Instead of seeing a human soul in front of us, we see position and power, and the greater the distance between those rungs, the harder it becomes to empathise.
We rush past one another. Students and adults alike, drowning in responsibilities. Even community spaces become more about enforcing rules than fostering connection. We say we are too busy, but perhaps we have simply forgotten what deserves our time.
Secondly, social media exposes us to everything we were never meant to witness so frequently or so casually. Pain and suffering become content we scroll past. Slowly, we stop reacting. We are caught in cycles of instant novelty — dopamine-driven feeds of outrage, tragedy, and distraction — and when everything is intense, nothing feels intense anymore.
I used to believe I was different, but over time, I noticed something unsettling. The heartache I once felt had gradually faded. At the start of the Iranian conflict, I found myself thinking, “Another distressing headline in a long list of distressing headlines”, and I regret that deeply.
A friend of mine, living right next door in Iraq, shared the fear she experienced — the reality behind those headlines. It made me realise how easily we forget to feel, how easily we detach, and lose our empathy.
The third reason: global connectivity. We are more connected than ever before, yet somehow more distant. Communication is instant, but we replace real conversations with texts that are easily misunderstood.
Now… (Take out your phone here, or gesture to it.) This small object — so often the cause of our distraction — is also one of the greatest tools we have to show we care. Someone reaches out with a simple “hey”, and we dismiss the ping as annoying… but a genuine “You okay?” could mean everything to someone silently struggling on their own.
Empathy is about stepping outside of your own mind and into someone else’s. In Islam, this is not just encouraged, it is a responsibility. Allah says in Suratul-Baqarah, ayah 143:
“We have made you ˹believers˺ of an upright community so that you may be witnesses over humanity…”
The command to be a witness does not simply mean to observe; it means to be a community that shows compassion to all.
How would we begin to do this? Helen Riess, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, developed 7 neuroscience-based keys for transforming the way we live, love, work, and connect across differences.
It begins very simply – using the word EMPATHY as an acronym:
- Eye contact
- Muscles of facial expression
- Posture
- Affect
- Tone of voice
- Hearing the whole person
- Your response
On your next drive to work, instead of waiting uncomfortably for the light to change, try a “sorry, I can’t help today”, still acknowledging humanity and not undermining dignity.
“A world without empathy is a world that is dead to others — and if we are dead to others, we are dead to ourselves.”
Those words by Joan Halifax are not simply a reflection — they are a warning. A call to slow down in a world addicted to speed. A call to feel in a world that profits from our numbness. A call to see human beings as true souls and not positions on ladders.
We can all start with something small. Respond to those messages. Return that missed call. Listen — not to reply, but to understand, because you never know when your empathy might be the very thing that brings someone back from the edge.
So, the next time your phone lights up, don’t just see a notification — see a chance for connection.
Thank you.