“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If someone is different from you - in the way he looks, thinks, believes, behaves, or speaks - it doesn’t make him bad or somehow “lesser than”. It just means he’s…different.

When we encounter “different”, it may trigger a fear response. We are often afraid of what we don’t understand. This fear feeds off our own insecurities and we go into self-protection mode. We feel we need to protect ourselves from “different”, so we hide from or lash out against the perceived threat. We retreat into our comfort zone where everything is familiar and comfortable. We build walls to keep “different” out, and familiar in.

It’s easy to judge others...until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.  It takes courage to rise above the fear and take steps to better understand those who are different from us. The more we understand, the less fearful we will be. The less fearful we are, the more open we will be to showing compassion and kindness instead of hate and paranoia.

We each have our unique story that colors the way we see the world. We have to support and be patient with each other on this quest to let go of fear and embrace compassion. It’s not always easy. We can be leaders in changing the world for the better by creating communities where we embrace and celebrate our differences, and a world that benefits from the beauty of diversity.  Using our differences to divide is a coward’s tactic. Fearmongering, bullying, intimidation, deceitfulness is not leadership. It’s manipulative, divisive and self serving. Embracing diversity may sound cliche, but it is truly a key component in making this world a better place. I believe that no matter how different we may appear to be on the surface, there is more that unites us than divides us. We just need to do the hard work of really listening, seeking to understand, and showing kindness.