While I was having dinner yesterday, my brother was watching a reality show called BBNaija. It is a show I detest a lot because of the immorality that is been practiced there and the reward attached.
I honestly can't imagine someone walking away with over 100 million naira just for doing dirty and nasty things in a show but there is a saying that there is always sense in some unreasonable place or event. While eating, I kept hearing "there is strength in our differences". Those words kept ringing in my ears and I left the spot where I was eating to see what was happening on TV.
It was a drama about uniting the tribes in Nigeria and I saw lots of sense in it but it made thinking beyond just Nigeria.
Have you ever imagined what the world would have looked like -
If we are all equal and have no difference between us?
Imagine if we all had the best IQ.
Imagine if we are perfect and do not make mistakes.
Imagine if all our wishes can be fulfilled without stress.
The world would have been a boring place to live in if we all are the same and these thoughts have made me believed that we were all designed to depend on others due to the differences between us.
Rather than seeing our differences as a reason to discriminate or make ourselves enemies, why can't we embrace those differences and live in peace with one another?
During my junior school days. I learned that before money came into existence, people of different races and tribes performed a form of trade called "Trade By Barter".
It is a form of trade where people live on what others have, how? Imagine you have rice, I have peppers and someone else has groundnut oil. Since as an individual we need all these things to make a complete meal, all we will do is to exchange what we have to get what we wanted.
There is a reason why I don't have what you have and these differences are meant to unite us but instead, it has succeeded in tearing us apart. I will briefly talk about some differences and how we have failed at handling them.
Color differences.
This is one of the things that has destroyed humanity and we even honored the difference to the extent that we even gave it a name (Racism).
Colors are meant to add beauty and I don't think it should be a reason why a particular person is going through a hard time surviving among people whose skin color is different from him or her. I have come to conclude that we are not thinking straight for allowing skin color to build a difference between us when we are the same human, it is not like your color made you have an extra pair of the brain, eye, or head.
We have these colors so that other humans can look more beautiful to our eyes, do you know how many colors of flowers we have out there?
So why do we discriminate against other humans and embrace the difference in flowers?
We are liars and pretenders if we admire the color's differences in nature and can't tolerate that color of a fellow human being.
Cultural difference.
I have experienced this time without numbers and I don't understand why people discriminate against others with a different culture.
Language
We all have a universal language and our local language doesn't make us any different. I was trying to take a bike when the bike man charged me double the fare and all my efforts to make him take me to my destination was useless. After waiting for few minutes, his tribesmen who knew me in the neighborhood saw me and approached me. After telling him what happened, he spoke to him in their language and he listened.
I was surprised and told the guy not to bother, I was going to wait for another bike. It was annoying to know that he was only willing to help because someone who spoke his language intervened.
Belief
Our cultures have made us have different beliefs about things and it is sometimes difficult to do things in the way of others.
We must understand and tolerate others' beliefs and the rampant act of condemning others' believe should be put to the sword.
If we allow cultural differences to set boundaries for us, it would be a shame on us. The issue of a tribe or country not having anything to do with another country shouldn't be coming up, we should rather see ourselves as people with different unique abilities than rejecting the difference.
We must be willing to help, tolerate and relate with people irrespective of cultural differences.
Other difference.
There are lots more differences between us which include wealth, health, intelligence, strength, and others. These differences mostly occur naturally, some of these differences are beyond our ability to change while we have control over some.
Regardless of what resulted in the difference, it is best to see ourselves as one. A lot of bad things happening in the world today wouldn't have happened if we never allowed our differences to get into our heads.
The difference should be the reason for our unity, it shouldn't be the reason why we must hate ourselves, go to war, or seek our downfall.
Embracing our differences is one step into making the world a better place.
We are liars and pretenders if we admire the color's differences in nature and can't tolerate that color of a fellow human being. - you nailed this part. Very well said. This speaks a lot. 💗
And I agree that if we all are the same, have the same IQ and all; life would be boring. As there will bo no one that will say of we are doing things right, there will be no one that will say good job if we do the right thing. It should be balance. That's how our indifferences matters.