We All Stub Our Toes - We Are All the Same

Stadium People. Sporting Events Can Bring Us Together, and Separate Us

In her book "Start with Hello," Shannan Martin spent some time on the concept of how all of us are really the same. We spend too much time looking at differences, especially in this world of social media where most of what we see is staged or meant to cause envy so you will want to spend more time or buy some product. Her concept of "Windows > Mirrors" (for those of you who don’t remember math - you should read that equation as “windows are greater than mirrors”) tries to get us to be open to all others and open our windows to commune with others rather than closing ourselves down because we think "they" are different.

She says, "Their lives might be different from mine but aren’t necessarily better—and probably aren’t worse. Their bodies fail them. Their drains clog. Dinner burns so hard not even the skillet can be salvaged. They cry at night. They lose their way. Just like me. Just like us."

Remembering this thought could help remove jealousy, racism, envy, comparison, and some of the ills we see in the world based on social media. I wish more people, especially the young around us, could understand this as they look at online photos or information that people are presenting their best selves - or more commonly, their fake selves.

All of us are in this together and all have the same issues. We are all human. We all get colds, we all cry, we all feel love and pain, we all stink if we don't shower or wash up, we all poop, we all stub our toes, we all get old and get pain in our joints, we all have family that we struggle to get along with . . . no matter who you are. Every person in every country, in every social-economic situation, of every race, worshiping any religion. We all have the same issues and we are all 99% the same. The 1% differences are just not important.

Sting wrote a song called "Russians" in the 1980's during the peak of the cold war. Those in America and Europe were told to believe that the Russians were evil killers out to get us, and they were told to believe the same about us. In Sting's song he sung about how he does not "subscribe to that view" because the "Russians love their children too." It was a commentary on politics and extremism, but the larger point is that we are the same even if they seem like evil mortal-enemies. We are all the same. "We share the same biology, regardless of ideology. But what might save us, me and you, is if [they all] love their children too." And of course they do. We all do. Even those that the internet machine tells us we should think of as evil because of their views, beliefs, or ideas.