Why should we walk a mile in someone else’s shoes?
From Woodstock To Eternity tries to address the ideology behind the peace and love movement in the 1960’s and ’70’s. The core principle revolved around the caution that if you didn’t really know what someone was going through, how they felt, the experiences they had, you could come to the wrong conclusion and judge them falsely. And by judging falsely, all of your subsequent perceptions of them would be false as well. Here is an excerpt from the book,
In 1970, Joe South wrote a song entitled, “Walk a Mile in My Shoes”, which defined the 
message that we should see, feel, and experience what someone is going through before we pass judgment on them. This is the reason thousands of young people who already had it made tried to look, feel and act like they didn’t have a thing in the world. They wanted to walk a mile in their shoes. They wanted to experience poverty when they weren’t poor. They grew their hair out so they could incur abuse for their shabby outward appearance, just like people who couldn’t help it did. They wouldn’t admit it, or put it that way, but that’s what it boiled down to.
Straight society would scorn them, avoid them, treat them like morally depraved, undesirable freaks. That’s what they looked like, anyway. They wore their freak badge proudly. They wanted to empathize with the downtrodden and join with them so they could experience the injustice. If enough people did this, they could transform society, break down the barriers between classes, and permanently alter the hierarchy of mankind.
How do you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes?
This is the harder question. While we may be willing to subject ourselves to someone else’s trials and tribulations, there are areas that others simply cannot go. A white man can never know what it is like to be black. A man can never really know what goes on in a woman’s mind. This has been proven over the course of human existence. But, it is nevertheless a noble effort to try. This is how Dustin Morgan approached it,
Morgan was already an attractive, normal looking young man. What would possess him to grow his hair out and intentionally make himself look unattractive? He was already in the middle class. What advantage could he gain by intentionally making himself look like a low class bum? He already had a 
home, so why would he want to make himself look homeless? He already had shoes. Why would he want to run around barefoot?
Some people just think it’s cool to be poor, downtrodden, and talk like a hick. There is a perception that people who don’t have anything are more real than people who do. Because they have no possessions, they have nothing to put on airs about, so they have no hypocrisy. And HYPOCRISY, of course, is the greatest evil of them all.
Because they are crude, and have no training in social graces, they also escape the phony, high falutin’, high society arrogance that high class people show. The high class looks down on the low class, because they think they are better than others, and we all know that no one is better than anybody else, and we are all equal in God’s sight. The low class looks down on the high class because they think they’re so dang high-falutin’. So the real people, the ones who tell it like it is, who have no hypocrisy, who have no airs, who really look at the inside and not on the outside are the uneducated, unsophisticated, down to earth good old boys.
The answer is in The Golden Rule
“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” This is the way I learned it. The actual verse from the New King James Version says,
“just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.” Luke 6:31
And, perhaps the best known verse is the Second Great Commandment. Jesus said,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” Matt 22:37
Doesn’t this say it all? Imagine yourself suffering the treatment, dealing with the issue, making the decisions that the other is doing, and how you would react, before casting judgment on what they are doing. Simple… but so few do it. Listen to Jesus and do what He says, and we can all “permanently alter the hierarchy of mankind.”
wearing blazers and ties, and he said to himself, “That looks so boring. I’m glad I don’t have to live like that.”
“Well, that’s even worse. I don’t want God messing with my mind to get me to stop wanting to do all the things I want to do right now. If I ask Jesus into my heart, I’m opening myself up to a mental overhaul that I never signed up for in the first place. No, like I said, I’m happy for you both, but I’m enjoying life too much now to change things.”
cravings, we fall into bondage – we are obligated to carry it out. If we overcome these cravings, we gain the victory (as I put away my box of Milk Duds). The matter is not so frivolous if it entails committing a grievous sin. When this happens, it is a war between the carnal nature and the spiritual man.
However, they will most likely try to make you feel obligated. It is so easy to fall for social acceptance, that it can turn into a bondage you cannot shake. How do you overcome this? If you don’t do what they say, you will be an outcast. Put on an eternal perspective. Jesus said that when we are reviled in this life, we will be rewarded in the next.
baddest, the this-est and the that-est. So you have to do this thing to maintain your status. Nobody bosses you around… nobody tells you what to do. Guess what? Your need for status now has you in bondage, and it is telling you what to do.
The “Gateway Theory” predicts that, if you experiment with an innocent looking vice, you will move on to deeper levels of pleasure and gratification that will eventually result in bondage to activities you never dreamed of when you first started out. The classic example of this would be the idea that if you take one hit of marijuana, you will end up addicted to heroin. Of course, the same reasoning would apply that if you drink one beer, you will become an alcoholic.
Jesus called this switch a gate…
