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Today's
Meditation:
I
get very frustrated when I see and hear people trying to
convince others that diversity is a bad thing. It
makes me sad to know that many people are so afraid of
people and things that are different that they're not
willing to tolerate the differences that are simply how
other people are, whether that be due to skin color,
religion, culture, heritage, or even the region of a country
in which they were born.
The
diversity inherent in the human race is a beautiful thing,
yet many human beings don't see it as such because they see
anyone who's different as a threat. Therefore, they
engage in semantic games and judgmental ways of thinking
that put the other people at an artificially lower level,
rather than celebrating the differences because we realize
that we can learn new and different things from people who
have different experiences and perspectives than we have.
I
want to always celebrate diversity because it's very
important to life on our planet. Diversity gives us a
rich view of life and living, as long as we keep ourselves
open to the diverse ways of experiencing the world.
When we're a part of a rich tapestry, we're contributing our
backgrounds and experiences while allowing others to
contribute equally. If we reject the rich tapestry, we
try to contribute everything based on our ideas and our
beliefs, without letting others contribute equally.
And we all lose when that happens.
Our
diversity is one of our richest assets, yet it's one that
many people reject outright and that many other people
neglect consistently. We need not only to accept the
diversity of this world, simply because it is what it is,
but also to celebrate it and contribute to it, because thus
we can make it richer and more beneficial to all.
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For further
thought:
People
need to see that far from being an obstacle, the world's
diversity of
languages, religions, and traditions is a great treasure,
affording us precious
opportunities to recognize ourselves in others.
Youssou
N'Dour
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