Technology brings us together with people all around the world. News hits us almost the moment it occurs. Social Media keeps us in touch with friends and family near and far. And yet, doesn’t it feel like no one actually has discussions anymore? There is a lot of commenting, sharing, and canceling to be sure but it’s rare to have a discussion simply to exchange ideas anymore. Now it feels most important to “win” the argument; to always be right. I’m curious when we got so scared of being wrong or even just changing our minds.

I grew up in an academic family who loved debating topics. We discussed everything – religion, books, music, politics, everything! The only rule was that we had to be respectful of each other. And I never remember anyone being upset or angry. We all very much wanted to hear what everyone thought, not because we agreed or were looking to win anyone over. We just really liked ideas. We didn’t enter the conversation with our minds set in stone, nor did we think our thoughts defined who we were. Instead we had some theories or questions and we tossed them out there and listened to each other, eventually forming our own opinions. Looking at multiple perspectives helped us get a deeper understanding of what we believed and why. Nothing was framed in “right or wrong” – and as a little girl, that made me see the world as one big endless possibility; a live thing that changed and evolved. It also ingrained in me the knowledge that we can all disagree and still be kind and understanding; we can even think the other person is completely off their rocker and still be kind and understanding. Two things can be true.

So it’s not too terribly surprising that I studied politics and philosophy in college, right? I loved sitting in discussion groups and just having that back and forth of brainstorming and then playing devil’s advocate. It opened up our minds and helped us figure out who we were. I also loved sitting up with my roommate (who did NOT study politics and philosophy; he was a math and econ guy) until the early hours of the morning, discussing and debating everything – from dating to world hunger. Our different backgrounds gave us a chance to hear a point of view we may have missed by only talking to people who agreed with us or had the same interests we had. And even now, years later and a country apart he is one of my closest friends. We disagree on more current events than not but what we absolutely DO agree on is that each of us is coming from a good place.

I think it’s such a missed opportunity to tune someone out because they don’t have the same opinion. At the end of the day, the majority of humans want the same things: to be loved, to be safe, to be happy. I believe we are all doing our best with the information we have. Usually I find that we don’t really disagree on the outcomes, just the way we get to those outcomes. And more often than not those ideas tie back not to facts, but to feelings – usually some kind of feeling of fear. Knowing why someone believes what they do is so much more enlightening than just arguing a point. Even if we think their belief is wrong or mean or whatever, you can see the humanness behind their thought process and it dampens the need to feel that our way is the only way.

Many of us have friends or family members that belong to different political parties, religions, and so on right? And yet the majority of us still love them and even if we think they have nutty views, we give them a pass because we KNOW them – we know “why” they think the way they do; not because they’re bad or dumb, but because their life situation has led them to have big feelings about some things. It seems to me that if we could accept that as true for all people, everywhere, we could stop working so hard to make sure we have the “right” answers and focus on how we can accomplish our goals successfully for the highest good of all concerned. We could regain our curiosity, our humanity and I absolutely believe, we could remove so many of the roadblocks holding us back from reaching true peace – in ourselves, our communities and our world.

Thanks for listening to my opinion!