All the Humans We Meet

So, we’ve been traveling again. I just got back from a couple weeks in Europe. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I love to travel because of the stimulation it gives my mind and my spirit. The newness of the experiences and the variety of the places and cultures all combine to inspire and energize me. But there is one thing I don’t find much different from place to place–people.

As much as we might want to imagine it, people around the world are, at their center, pretty much the same. I know that, in my experience, most people are good and kind and want to help regardless of race, religion, or country. We all have this binding similarity that is all too easily forgotten—that we are all human and we all want the same basic thing… to be happy.

That’s why it’s so upsetting when I see in the news about people segregating themselves from each other. Whether it’s one culture feeling distrusting another culture or the one political party trying to make it look like members of the other political party are another species, these divisions just make it harder for us to understand each other. It really makes no sense for us to think this way and, even worse, to teach our kids to think this way.

What would really help is for us all to stop and think that each individual person and realize that we all have the capacity for love and caring as well as hate and anger. Everyone we meet is someone’s child as well as someone’s friend and maybe even a mother or father or sibling. Each of us struggles with pain and misunderstanding. We all have dreams and desires. That is who these other’ people are–not a complete stranger but someone that is an awful lot like ourselves.

Knowing this I am not at all surprised to find, as I travel, smiling faces and kind gestures in every country and every culture I get to experience. I think if we expect animosity, we will find animosity, but if we expect compassion and generosity, it will be there for us to find. So, let’s all try to get past these divisions and try to understand that, like us, these other people we hear about or meet as we travel, they are struggling, wonderful humans too.

As much as we might want to imagine it, people around the world are, at their center, pretty much the same. I know that, in my experience, most people are good and kind and want to help regardless of race, religion, or country. We all have this binding similarity that is all too easily forgotten—that we are all human and we all want the same basic thing… to be happy.

That’s why it’s so upsetting when I read in the news about people segregating themselves from each other. Whether it’s one culture feeling hurt by what they are told about how another culture sees them or the one political party trying to make it look like members of the other political party are another species, it really makes no sense and is not helpful to keep pushing that division.

What would really help is for us all to stop and think that each individual person and realize that we all have the capacity for love and caring as well as hate and anger. Everyone we meet is someone’s child as well as someone’s friend and maybe even a mother or father or sibling. Each of us struggle with pain and misunderstanding. We all have dreams and desires. That is who these other’ people are, not a complete stranger but someone that is an awful lot like ourselves.

Knowing this I am not at all surprised as I travel to meet smiling faces and kind gestures in every country and every culture I get to experience. I think if we expect animosity, we will find animosity, but if we expect compassion and generosity, it will be there for us to find. So, let’s all try to get past these divisions and try to understand that, like us, they are human too.