Us, not Them

We are not them. They are not us. I am not you. We are all created different, and that is good.

You will never be me. You will never experience the world as I see it because you do not share my past. Every moment that I have lived shaped me into the person I am at this very hour. Who I will be tomorrow will not be who I am now because I will continue to grow moment by moment.

Stagnation is a horrid little disease that leads to the acceptability of mediocrity. We robe ourselves in monotony and forget that life is meant to be lived, experiences are meant to be shared. A beautiful part of that sharing is learning from each other. If we avail ourselves of those who merely mirror our social status or echo our political ideologies, what do we learn? If we surround ourselves with those who parrot our beliefs and fail to challenge our intellect, our minds grow weak and our souls suffer.

I want to taste the diverse culinary cuisine of intellectual flavors. I want to know why you do not see things as I do and I want to share with you what I see. I want to call you my brothers and sisters in humanity though we share nothing but oxygen and the desire to live fully the life we have been blessed with.

No, I will never truly understand you because your past does not belong to me. I will never fully appreciate your views or your logic, but I would like to learn from you. I would like for you to learn from me as well. Your beliefs will not change mine, nor will my thoughts influence you...and that is fine, but together we can expand our thoughts outside of ourselves and see our truths from a fresh perspective.

I wish only to celebrate your uniqueness and catch a glimpse of your brilliance. I want to share with you this moment so that when tomorrow comes, I will be a better me for having known you...and have grown from my time with you. I want to remind myself that our differences are not what define us, but they can be what bind us.

Mother Teresa said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” We are all on the same journey in life, and there is no reason why we cannot keep each other company along the way.

You will never be me and I will never be you. But we can learn to appreciate one another, learn to value each other, and learn to be us instead of them.