We touched on this a few posts ago when looking at the ‘Golden Rule’ and how many belief systems include it. We do have a lot more in common that most of us would feel comfortable to admit. What about those pesky differences? The ones that keep wars occurring, people arguing and relationships ending? How can humanity survive all of that? By learning to play in the sandbox together. Again, this is a lesson we can learn from our children. On any given day, you can see a group of children who are all different playing together in the sandbox. They might be from different economic levels, different religions and different races. The only important thing to them is helping each other build a sand castle.
As an adult life cannot really be that simple though, can it? Yes, it can. These children do not mind that each other are different. As a matter of fact, they are focused on the moment and what they have in common – they are all playing in the sandbox. The sandbox can represent life itself. We are all playing in the same sandbox that is life. We might be trying to build different sand castles, but we are all doing the best we can. As I look around the coffee shop where I am writing, there are many people who are all different. Different ages, different genders and different social groups. We are all here drinking some sort of beverages and working on things in our life. It could be reading a book or finishing a term paper. The fact is that we all chose to come to the coffee shop to work on something. Even if that something is just connecting with and sharing conversation with a friend.
You can see how even in that example there are both differences we could focus on, or we could chose to focus on what we all have in common. The difference? Well that is also stated in small letters at the bottom of the picture above – “Be happy, enjoy life”. By choosing to focus on what we have in common instead of our differences we will do just that. We will be happier and enjoying life a lot more.
