Unique Humans

I’m sure that you would agree that no two lives are exactly the same. The same is true with personalities, physical fitness, intelligence, disabilities, routines, etc. I have always been amazed at how all humans are so unique. Sure, many of us are very similar to other people but we are never exactly the same. I’m pretty certain if you met someone that looked exactly like you and their thinking seemed to match yours as well, you’d be immensely surprised, maybe even shocked. I’ve lived in and visited countless cities in 94 countries and, of course, in my travels I met thousands of people, but I’ve never met another person just like me!

When it comes to travel, I have to say I owe my father big time for showing me how wonderful it can be. My father and I were very different, but he introduced me to travel and all the benefits it brings to a person and pretty much their entire lives. So even though I think my father and I are different in most ways, we both certainly learned to love travel and his sharing this passion turned out to be life changing for me, in very good ways.

When I was only 15, he took the whole family to Ankara, Turkey. It was because of a job change but it was still a pretty big deal to do that. And, wow, did that change my whole life and the way I see the world, for the better. Of course, it gave me the travel bug and it introduced me to all these different cultures, which I still find very exciting. That excitement pushed me to travel, and not just occasionally. So now, not only have I visited 94 different countries, that travel bug even motivated me to plan my honeymoon as a travel-around-the-world-in-28-days trip! That’s a trip I will never forget!

I am of the belief that if all humans traveled a lot and really experienced other cultures, it would make the world safer and so much better inasmuch as we would see and understand other people’s beliefs, practices, and cultural differences, allowing us to better appreciate and accept them. I do think that today’s technology is very helpful as we can get a better sense of how people live through TV, news, and online sharing.

Sure, the news, videos and other information also show the problems and highlight the bad in people but for the most part we can see how people in so many different countries are getting along, working to make a living, taking time off to have a good time, traveling, and going to exciting events, just like we do.

I think that all this information we have access to shows us the differences in our cultures, but we also get to learn how we are alike, and that opens our minds and our views. And seeing how we are alike can help us accept and appreciate the differences between all of us unique humans.