Learning to appreciate our differences
There are many things written about various ‘fears’ that humans have which get int he way of enjoying life and/or moving forward – fear of success, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of going broke, fear of change and so on. What doesn’t really get described is the ‘fear of almost anything different’ that is an issue for many people – which also often ties to a fear of being ‘wrong’.
While differences can sometimes legitimately indicate that a person, creature or situation might be dangerous, most of the time, they simply are more a reflection of diversity than of anything dangerous or threatening. If things were the constant threats to our survival that get portrayed in horror movies, negative news and passed down tales of the evil in the world, we would probably have all died out eons ago. Yet despite the ‘evils’ that are out there, the population keeps growing and the diversity in our lives keeps increasing, and overall life gets pogressively better in many ways. Learning to treat differences as an opportunity to learn and grow rather than a threat to run and hide from gives great opportunity to enrich one’s life immensely. We will have a little fun here looking at some of the ways we handle things and how we might do it differently and increase our joy in life.