Have you ever stopped to consider that we’re more alike than different?
A couple of weekends ago, I flew to Toronto to attend Vacation Rental Success Summit. While I don’t own a vacation rental, nor have I stayed at one, I was interested in watching one of my clients speak on stage, and I wanted to support a close friend.
While at the workshop the day before the event, I left my introvert’s perch off to the side of the room, and I began interacting with the attendees.
At first, I didn’t expect to have much in common with those people. They were older, many from different countries and their businesses weren’t things I had much experience in. I was in a strange new country, I was tired from traveling and staying up way too late, and I was out of my comfort zone.
But as I talked with more of these vacation rental owners, I learned something.
And, what I learned was powerful, and something I want to share with you.
Though deep down I think I know this, I learned that we’re more alike than different.
Over the past several months, social media has been hell. Scrolling through your Facebook feed, you’ve probably noticed a lot of negativity, opposing opinions, and all sorts of reasons why you should un-friend or un-follow your friends.
And the TV news channels haven’t been any better! Flip over to any major network and you’ll see hate crimes, beatings, firebombings and all sorts of bad things happening to people just like you and me.
But sitting there hearing about the problems, challenges, goals and dreams of these entrepreneurs, I couldn’t help but feel kindness, sympathy, empathy, understanding friendship towards them. The more they talked, the more I knew we were alike.
And that’s the message I’d like to leave you with today — there are more things that connect us than that keep us apart. We’re more alike than different.
For the most part, we all want the same things. We want happiness and safety, energy and opportunity. We want a chance to succeed on our terms, and to be judged for what we do, not how we look. We all want to travel and to spend time with friends and family. And that’s just the beginning.
Before you let a news channel or a news feed tell you what you should think or how you should feel about someone, sit down and try to understand them.
I’m no peacekeeper and I’m not someone who innately looks for the good in other people. I’m just someone too shy to speak up, but who learned a lot from listening in.
Have an amazing day!
Originally published at www.ellorywells.com on May 12, 2017.
Originally published at medium.com