Listening to media highlights the little things that make us different. Our politics, religious affiliations, or lack thereof, wealth, values, and ideologies are all played out to make us feel unalike.
These labels group us together in ways we may not always feel comfortable with. We find distaste in being easily categorized into a specific group. Yet, this is what the media does—it makes us different from everyone else.
Moreover, we play into this categorization. Everyone knows the hate-filled rants that permeate your social media feed during an election year. There’s an us-versus-them mentality. You’re either a Democrat or Republican and anything in between is just unnatural.
We argue and fight about things we expect Congress or other elected officials to change, yet we can see the efficiencies of that in the recent federal government shutdown fiasco.
There are senseless acts of violence over pettiness. And why? Because you and I differ of opinion? Difference is the key concept of America. Free and open marketplaces of ideas to discuss and think about are meant to be welcomed, but when they are so markedly divided, how can civil discourse occur?
Seeing these differences, it’s hard to not speak up and give your two cents. Thanks to the Internet and social media, expressing your opinion is one click away. It could be argued that social media has increased the quantity of opinions, but not its quality. Some would say it has done quite the opposite with the quality aspect.
We’ve all seen posts that anger us and make us question why someone would post such a thing. At the end of the day once we push ourselves back from the keyboard, we are not so different.
We all strive for those moments of happiness that occurs through the monotony of life—work, school, homework, chores, and repeat—to make our lives that much more special and bright.
Regardless of whether you’re a republican or democrat, Christian or a Muslim, in the end dishes need washed, clothes need folded and put away, kids need bathed, and the bills need paid. We live in a unique human condition where we can access billions of bits of information in a moment’s notice, where the life expectancy of the human population continues to increase, and where science and medicine will make this world a wonderful place to live.
Yet, we care so much about that one post we saw that supposedly makes us so different.
If we begin to see our similarities over our differences, maybe our world would become a more humble place to live for everyone.
