For example,

I have a home business. I maintain an e-mail list of past customers, which I send e-mails to about 3 or 4 times a year.

I got an e-mail from a customer who was obviously somewhat upset, and thought she'd hit me over the head and knock some sense into me by unsubscribing with the message "because the customer is deceased. signed, his widow".

Now at first glance, her feelings are understandable. What's the matter with all these heartless businesses trying to send advertisements to a dead man! They're just tormenting his poor widow, who is still grieving his loss.

EXCEPT -- if you look at it from the businessman's point of view...

How is he supposed to know that one of his customers died? It's not like he can Google each name to see if there's an obituary for them. Did the widow send out death notifications or funeral invitations to the various businesses that the deceased man patronized? Probably not.

The "evil, money grubbing, insensitive" businessman is probably just a family man trying to support his family -- who is merely sending e-mail advertisements to a list of past customers.  

Kind of puts things in a different perspective, doesn't it?

Thing is, there are plenty of other examples of where we need to put ourselves in the other person's shoes. It's so easy to look at the whole world from a "me-centric" viewpoint.

For example, any widow that resents a businessman for not somehow automatically taking a deceased man off his list, suggests that the deceased man is somehow the center of the universe, just as he is the center of HER universe. As if everyone is thinking about this deceased man (not just the widow) -- so any businessman sending mail to him is doing so with full knowledge that he is deceased. Not so!

To such a one, I say -- step out of yourself a little bit, and you'll get a better grasp of the objective situation.

What I've just described is called a "myopic viewpoint" -- where you can't see beyond the hand in front of your face.

It was an "unsubscribe request", so "no response" would be appropriate/customary.

I responded in the only way that was appropriate -- I removed her deceased husband's e-mail address from my list.