Communication

I'm a really good talker. If you get me started about something I have passion for, I can talk for days. I am not always a good communicator. I think our society has a communication problem. So many of the people we see in prominent positions today (I don't have to name any names, but come on, you know who I mean) are really good talkers and can talk for days, but they're not very good communicators.

I don't know if it's a result of technology and us being able to contact people in an instant, if we're so used to having information readily available on a screen that we've forgotten how to interact with humans, or if we've just been fed so much bullshit as a generation that communicating doesn't feel like a valuable skill anymore, but something is up. Have you ever come into contact with someone who you can just tell is listening to what you're saying? They're intent. They give cues and feedback that they are paying attention. Their responses are thoughtful, not off the cuff. I feel like it shouldn't be such a crazy thing to find those people in your life, but they're increasingly hard to come by.

I'm guilty. Sometimes I'm thinking of my response when I'm listening instead of taking everything someone has to say. Sometimes, I'm not paying attention at all because my brain is somewhere else. Sometimes my phone is on the table because I think something important is on its way. It's a poison. It's unfair, and I know very few people who aren't guilty of it. I think effective communication needs to be in every curriculum in every school. Get students to role play tough situations and serious conversations. Practice makes perfect they say.

I'll never forget one of my management classes in which the professor, now a friend and mentor, made us sit down and role play negotiating salaries. He didn't take it easy on us. He asked us hard questions like it was real life, and we were all put off. We all found it difficult. It's really hard for some reason for humans to say what they mean. It's hard for humans to say what we want, what we don't want, and how we feel, and those problems are just the surface. Throw in some past trauma, some heart break, tragedy, disabilities, and other factors, and communication gets a ton harder, despite how hard we might try to work at it or control it.

At first, I thought that the really great communicators that I know were just naturally gifted, and some people definitely might lean in the direction of being good communicators from the start. What I realize in my old age is that effective communication takes work, especially in a society that is increasingly self-centered and aloof. Something I've been trying to focus on recently is keeping my phone in my pocket when I'm with people (or leaving it home entirely). I've been trying to focus on being intentional in what I say and talking slower to truly articulate what I mean. Perhaps most importantly, I'm trying to be an active listener and take a true interest in what people are saying to me.

Spoiler alert: it is really, really hard. I've been trained to have my brain in 10,000 different directions at once, and I think my close friends have probably heard me claim that very often. I like to juggle a lot at once. I think that the true skill comes in being able to give your full attention to whatever your doing. It's often about time management. If you've overbooked yourself and you're stressed about it, as I often am and we all inevitably are, it's hard not to let your mind wander to all that is on your plate. I've taken great comfort in a planner, something I've always epically failed at until my move to England. If you're in my planner, and I have time blocked out for you, I want to truly give you that time. I want my head to be nowhere else.

Like I said, it's a skill. It's an active effort, and I'm still not great at it. I just can't help but think that so many of our world's problems could be solved if we communicated better. Maybe if our world leaders could communicate, nations might get along better. Maybe, if we could communicate better for ourselves, there'd be less divorce and less heartbreak. Maybe, if religions took the time to dialogue effectively, they would realize how much they have in common and there would be less conflict.

A large step in communication that's also missing is knowing how to communicate in ways that who you're talking to can understand. In metaphorical terms, not everyone speaks my language (and in literal terms, not everyone speaks my language, making it even more difficult). Empathy is sort of a required part of communication. If I try to talk to someone from a very different background to me, I might have to say it differently than I would say it if talking to someone very similar. It's not censoring myself; it's being intentional. If you want your message to come across how you intend it to, sometimes you have to learn to communicate the same thing in different ways. If I was talking about my previous jobs in an interview, I might talk about them very differently than I would in a small group of friends. I also understand that there's a certain degree of privilege in this point. That said, if you don't use your positions of privilege to try to do good, you're wasting an opportunity, I think.

I'm trying. I'm not preaching at you and saying you need to try, but I really respect people who are such effective communicators that it radiates from them. I want to be one of those people. I want to be an astronaut, a comedian, and a chef, too, but those are less attainable or important to my daily life, I think. Pick your battles, I guess. I just love that feeling when someone is communicating beyond the words being said. When you can tell it's not going in one ear and out the other, it means something.

I think New Year's resolutions and dry Januarys and other things are kind of gimmicky, so I'm resolving as a tiny, feeble human that I want to try to make this change in my life for good. Hell, if you feel like you're not getting my full attention when you're talking to me, feel free to snap your fingers in my face or slap me back to reality. Yes, permission to slap me. Don't all come running too fast! We don't heal divides, create change, or move forward as a society unless there are effective communicators out there. I have serious respect for the people who are already Jedi masters at it, and I'm trying.

"I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better. I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself." - Elon Musk

Aunt Lillie

I probably owe a large portion of who I am today to my great great Aunt Lillie. She babysat me every day from basically birth to age 13 when she died. I can remember bits of wisdom she taught me about life and about morality. I know she wasn't perfect, and I know she had some issues with other people in our family, but she was instrumental in my upbringing. Every once in a while, I see myself doing something I remember that she did, and it makes me smile a bit. Twelve years later, it's odd because she seems so distant, but I still remember so much as well.

Lately, I've been thinking about Aunt Lillie, and I wish she could've been here when I was a bit older so I could've known the person she was a bit better. I could've asked about what her life was like before my sister and I came along. I could've had a drink with her. I could thank her for everything she did for me. It's not really a regret; I was just too young to have that sort of relationship with her. I remember sitting at the side of her bed as she was dying in hospice, and I was too young to process what was going on. I never cried for her. I was just too young, which in a way was a gift I guess, as it would've been much harder to lose her later on in life.

All of these thoughts about Aunt Lillie lately come as a result of several friends recently losing people they love, of losing Brad Zandstra, of reflection on mortality and the way I live my life. Relationships become more meaningful when you realize how much they mean in your life and how much you take them for granted. Only recently have I found my parents and I expressing love verbally. Only recently have I become at all comfortable with hearing or saying, "I love you." I don't quite know why that's the case, but I have a guess that it's an admission of vulnerability. If you admit love freely, you open yourself to the inevitability of loss. It's simultaneously one of the scariest and most beautiful things humans can do, to express in some way that you're putting someone else above yourself.

I've been trying to be more open in relationships. I've been trying to have deeper and more meaningful conversations. I've been trying to be more careful than ever before in considering other peoples' feelings. I feel a considerable amount more guilt when I slip up and am a jerk. If I die tomorrow, that person who I wronged will go on thinking I'm a jerk. It's a cliche to say, "live every day like it's your last," and quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing it put that way. An acute understanding of your mortality takes more than a greeting card. It takes action.

This realization was one of the scariest parts of giving up religion for me. If there's no afterlife, the world is here and now. It's scary, but it forces you to live your life with the understanding that all that lives on after you're gone is the effect you have on the world while you're here. It makes my relationships mean more. It makes my efforts to be a good person mean more. I'm not trying to be a good person because of something after I die; I'm trying to be a good person because this life is all I have. I'm not knocking those who believe in an afterlife. If it makes you a good person, I'm all for it, but my realization that this life is all I have has made me considerably more introspective and self-critical (in a good way).

I wonder what Aunt Lillie would think of me now. I like to think she'd be proud. I like to think we'd enjoy a brandy together from time to time and sit in her sunroom and talk about life. I'd go over to check on her, and maybe I could pay back a bit of the taking care of me that she did in my youth. I don't remember ever telling her I loved her. I'd do that for starters.

Losing people is never easy. Brad was like a second father to me. I think about him every day. I never think about the bad times though, and every time I think about him, I end up with a smile on my face. I hope that someday when I die (hoping later rather than sooner), people will smile when they think of me. That's the afterlife I live in anticipation of. That's what I hope for any of my friends going through tough times, that as wounds heal, the good times prevail as the memories flood in.

It's been a while since I've written, but not for lack of thoughts that have intrigued me. I'm between terms now, and it's crazy how time flies. It's happening more and more as I get older. I'm trying to take the days one at a time and soak in as much as I can. Thanks for reading, and have a great holiday season.

Selfish

As these posts often go, I've been reflecting on something for a while now, and it's time to write it down. Lately, I've been thinking about what it means to be selfish.

Well, for starters, you can't get more of a negative connotation. The dictionary says: "(of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure."

I disagree pretty strongly with some words in that definition based on the thinking I've done over the last few weeks, and the main word is "chiefly."

This thinking all started with a conversation with my coworkers on my last night in Rome. The question came up about whether we felt selfish for taking two years in Rome. I think everyone but me said they felt selfish in regards to their friends and family, or even that they were made to feel selfish by friends and family.

My first reaction was "no, I don't feel selfish at all," but then I kind of felt like a jerk since everyone else said they did, and I thought about why I didn't feel that way.

I find that when we describe people, there's hardly an in-between for the extremes of selfishness and selflessness. We're taught that there's one or the other. That's why that word "chiefly" irks me so much, I think. It's like if you do any actions focusing on yourself, and tip the scale in that direction, you're selfish. End of story.

I don't agree with that. I think there's plenty of in between, and I don't think selfishness has to have a negative connotation.

The last few weeks have given me some pause. When I first saw all my friends in Chicago, I was pretty taken aback at how much envy I felt for their lives. They get together to watch Game of Thrones every Sunday. They watch football. They go out to eat together. They see each other around. I felt a bit left out of some inside jokes. It was weird and jarring.

So, I thought long and hard about that, and I realized that despite that twinge of envy, the feeling of how great it was to see everyone was what I really walked away with. In so many ways, it was like nothing had ever changed. Which brings me to my point:

My lifestyle isn't selfish because it makes me happy and I do it for me. Sure, I miss my family, and I miss my friends, and I hope that they miss me, but true friendships and family ties don't ask for one party to sacrifice their happiness. I know my mom wishes I was home. I know how fun it would be to be with all of my friends. That said, they don't think I'm a selfish jerk. They know I'm happy, and we make it work in the relationships that are lasting.

I was in Colorado this weekend, and my good buddy Mike Lempko invited me on a lake trip with his crew of friends. As I met people, I realized that their friendships were mostly forged in Colorado despite being from all over, and that they too had moved away from home in pursuit of something. It gave me some peace to see a great group of people like that who may have done what some people perceive as selfish, but they were really welcoming to me and really selfless in general. You don't have to sacrifice your own happiness to be selfless.

To truly be selfish, that ugly negative word we all know, I think you have to put your own interests ahead of the well being of other people. Your happiness has to come at the expense of someone else's, and furthermore I think that detriment to another's happiness has to be intentional. If I truly felt that my absence was ruining the well being of my friends and family (talk about arrogance), then I might be able to apply selfishness to myself. I might not live how I live. If you are willing to tear someone else down to build yourself up, you're selfish. If you prioritize yourself somewhere in the long line of priorities you have towards others, you're a healthy human in my opinion.

So, maybe this whole post is a big justification in a time of uncertainty for me. But what it boils down to in my brain is really a reassuring feeling that just because I go off in pursuit of my own interests doesn't mean I sacrifice true friendships with some of the best humans on the planet. This is going to come out worse than I intend it to, but people's lives go on. They probably hardly notice that I'm gone, but I hope they're happy when I'm back.

Quit feeling guilty for doing stuff for yourself. Sometimes, your happiness will be difficult for others. Sometimes, it will be difficult for you. But to be selfless requires you to be a bit selfish first I think. Thanks for reading.

About Love

The single millennial battle cry of recent seems to be “every time I get on Facebook, someone else is getting engaged or married!” We say it almost scornfully. I’ve spent a lot of time in recent months making major life decisions, and my brain keeps wandering back to where love fits in. I’ve been utterly preoccupied with the hope of one day finding “the one,” the person who I’ll settle down and have kids with. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t come with its fair share of considering the other side of the coin; I might never find that person.

It does seem that a lot of people my age are rushing to find someone, which is pretty on par with the stereotype that we’re a generation of instant gratification. We like things to happen quickly, and they often do. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing necessarily, but love is a tricky thing. I think that desire for moving things along has given rise to Tinder and things like it. Our youth was dictated by the rise of the Internet and the smart phone; of course it’s infiltrated the most intimate corners of our lives.

I think I’ve been in love a few times. The older I get, the more that I realize the quest for love probably isn’t about finding “the one.” The more I analyze it (which is admittedly a silly thing to do with love), the more I think that falling in love probably has a lot to do with circumstance. We load our dating app profiles with tidbits about ourselves, cheesy pickup lines, and bad puns, but if it isn’t the right place and the right time, it doesn’t matter how much someone suits you. That’s the end of the line.

I used to think I needed to find someone to complete me, someone with whom I couldn’t live without. That’s the stuff of fairytales after all. I don’t think I believe that anymore. Dependency isn’t love. Independent congruency is more like what I want. I don’t want someone who needs me in order to be whole. I want to contribute a new, meaningful part to their whole, and I want them to contribute a piece to mine. That’s not to say there’s no void if they’re gone, but it’s not filling some gap that you’ve had your whole life that could only be filled by that person.

I’ve been caught up for a long time in the practicality of love, often using that as an excuse for why I don’t currently have it. “I live abroad! I’m just kind of doing me right now.” While that’s true, I also miss companionship in that way. I use my isolation and self-interest as an excuse for the real reasons I probably haven’t met anyone. Those reasons I find are probably numerous, but I’ve always lived under the guise that someone should love me for who I am. While that’s also true, I think I’ve let myself get away internally and externally because that’s what I believed. I want to be loved for who I am, but ironically, I think I let who I was get away because I thought that meant I could do whatever I wanted.

So, yes, everyone is getting married and engaged, and it stings a bit. I won’t act like some alternative lifestyle cool dude who just isn’t into love right now. I think everyone who’s single at my age is asking themselves the same question even if they don’t know they are. “Why am I so far behind these people? Why do they have it figured out?” I think all of us should probably take a good look at why we’re single before we blame it on the folks who have it figured out. I know I’ve got a lot of work to do on myself before someone else finds me to be an attractive investment of their heart and their time. I’m not talking about dates and hooking up; I’m talking about that long-term stuff. If I’m emotionally unavailable, crass, letting my appearance go, and being generally non-committal, of-fucking-course I haven’t found someone who’s interested in the long game. I can’t fault anyone for that, and I shouldn’t rain on the parade of the people who are a bit more mature than I am.

I’m constantly trying to improve myself, and it’s a slow process. After years and probably several failed relationships of thinking “you should love me for who I am” meant “you should love me no matter what,” I’m realizing that it’s not that way at all. You have to offer yourself in full, but you have to continue being your best if you really love someone. I’ve done my fair share of taking people for granted, and I probably owe some apologies.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough. Someday, I’ll probably find someone with whom I’ll have figured it out. All of those mistakes will have led me to a circumstance where love works. I’m not looking for someone specific, just someone who sparks my heart at the right place at the right time, and I spark hers. If not, I’ve taken the time to realize that that’s on me. It’s not, “what’s wrong with me?” It would be, “you didn’t put in the work, Ryan.” Here’s to putting in the work to be our best selves.

I Don't Know

I've been trying to write this for weeks, and I've been relatively unable to accurately articulate my thoughts, so bear with some scatter brain!

What happens if you mix uranium and helium? Is that even possible? I don't know.

How much weight can the Golden Gate Bridge bear? I don't know.

Are my mind and body separate, or are my personality and disposition merely the chemical reactions going on in my brain? I don't know.

I think all too often in our society, we look down on people who admit not knowing. We sell certainty! "Invest with us, and watch your money grow!" "Act this way, and you'll go to heaven!"

We live in constant fear of not knowing. Whether it's not knowing what the future holds or not knowing when asked a simple question, not having an answer sends us into anxious fits, myself included a lot of the time.

Sometimes, "I don't know" isn't an acceptable answer, and I get that. If you ask the doctor how to listen for a heartbeat, they should be able to tell you. Sometimes though, admitting you don't know something and then working to know the answer is the most noble course of action. The amount of people trying to bullshit their way through life is astounding. It's not embarrassing to not know; it's embarrassing to act like you know with certainty when you really don't.

The more that I critically think about my life, the more I realize just how often I've been guilty of being unable to admit uncertainty and embarrassing myself. It's something I've worked on in the last few years. It's something I really respect in other people. Admitting to being unsure is so much better than messing something up because you thought you were sure. In the office and in my personal life, I've tried to become more comfortable with not knowing, asking for help, or simply taking more time to do the research I need to in order to be certain.

"I preach the gospel of 'I don't know.'" I love that phrase. Relative degrees of certainty are so important in today's world, and being able to distinguish between what you know for sure and what you don't is a valuable skill.

I think it's an important time to rely upon evidence. We talk about fake news, alternative facts, and we calculate the percentage that politicians are truthful in their debates. As I encounter students at work, I waiver between hopelessness and hopefulness as I wonder if they're learning to think critically and analyze the information in front of them then make a decision. If there's not enough evidence, it's okay to not know. I wonder where we'll be in twenty years though if hyper-dependency on parents and inability to use Google without guidance become the norm.

I don't think that's a digression. I think critical thinking, self-sufficiency, and the ability to admit when you don't know something are all intwined. It takes intelligence, work, and practice to admit to not knowing. That sounds silly, but I think as humans, when we don't know something, our instinct is to grasp at straws, to try to put together a satisfactory answer even if it's not the right one. I think we gravitate towards simpler explanations, even if they're incorrect, because it's more comfortable than not knowing.

Sometimes, an explanation begins by conceding lack of an answer. How was the earth formed? I don't know, but there's a lot of relevant theories with evidence and research to back them up. The older and perhaps more cynical I get, the more that complete certainty scares me. Donald Trump is certain all the time, and he rarely gets anything right. I think taking someone's certainty based on their word requires trust and extensive background. As they say, you can't believe everything you hear.

As I said, I'm often guilty of the fear of uncertainty, and sometimes, I bullshit an answer as much as the next guy. I do think it's important to work yourself away from that, though. The world doesn't need certainty right now; it needs healthy and productive skepticism. Ask questions. Do research.

Simple Joys

Somewhat unbelievably, I haven't posted on here since September. Brief summary since then: Rome, Thailand, Rome, work, grad school applications, home for surgery, holidays, and soon back to Rome. Life has had ups and downs over the past few months as life generally does. Nothing too crazy to report.

Though not entirely sure why, I've become a little bit obsessed with asking one specific question of both people I've met over the last few months and also those close to me. The question has received a whole host of interesting answers, all fascinating to me. I've been trying to focus on the question in my own life and find a different answer every day.

The question: What is a simple joy in your life?

I love this question. It's got a lot going on in just a few words that really make people think. First, what is something that brings them joy, but also, to qualify it with the word 'simple' ironically makes it considerably more complicated. Does it mean that the joy is trivial or that it means less? I don't think so. To me, 'simple' means this: something ordinary, perhaps that you take for granted. Something that's part of your everyday life that brings you joy.

I've been asking people this question since my trip to Thailand. Things seemed so much simpler there. I could see joy on people's faces for no apparent reason. It struck me. In today's society, joy always seems to be so complex. We don't think we can have joy in our lives without the perfect partner, the perfect friends, the perfect job. We obsess over perfection, and boy, did I fall into that in 2016. It wasn't until I started to search for joy in the little things that what I considered a relatively poor season of mental health turned into one of the better times in my life during recent memory.

Answers to the question have ranged from "when my daughter crawls into bed and wakes me up in the morning" to "the right song at exactly the right moment." When I first answered the question, my go-to was "morning coffee." There's nothing better than a hot coffee, the kick in the butt from the caffeine, and the people generally surrounding me as I enjoy it. Last night, I laughed about ridiculous nonsense with Pedro, and I thought to myself, "What a joy just being silly is." I spoke at length with Conor on FaceTime yesterday, and beyond the joy of talking to a close friend and catching up, I took simple joy from the fact that FaceTime exists (it's really amazing).

Life is so full of moments where complaining is the easy option. Dwelling on bad things actually takes no effort. It's the natural reaction, I think. All of us fall into that from time to time. 2016 seems to have really weighed on people. A tense election, deaths of prominent people, talk of the ongoing effects of climate change, campus rape stories, fake news, and seemingly one bad bit of information after the next.

If we allow that inundation of negativity to take hold, that becomes us. That becomes our lives, and we don't even realize it. It has become me at times in my life. It becomes me on bad days. I had a dream recently about a flood, and I woke up and thought for hours about this weird analogy for the way we live our lives. For so many of us, life exists in a flood plain. When there's no flood, things are fertile and good, but all it takes is a few days of rain for that flood to come crashing in to wipe us out.

In other words, life is often this crazy rollercoaster of ups and downs, and you're either up or you're down. I think I've been asking the question about simple joys to combat that in my life. I shouldn't have weeks or months of downturn. There's always simple joys around me, and since I've started taking notice, I feel better. Tough days have become less tough, and good days have become richer.

I'm a very, very lucky man when I take the time to reflect on it. So, in 2017, for you and for me, I will continue to ask the question. I hope it makes the pet peeves and the tiny annoyances and the Big Bang-like floods of negative energy feel like less of a burden. All the best to you and yours in the coming year. I've got a lot of change coming over the next year, so I imagine I'll be writing more in an effort to process my thoughts and feelings about it all. Thanks for keeping up with me, and thanks for being a joy in my life!

Unity

This post is going to cover everything from sports to politics, so strap in tightly, folks.

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about the divisions that divide us as humans. The racial divide is heavy on all of our minds, as African Americans are feeling the effects of oppression in ways I can't even begin to imagine. We have political divisions, highlighted in a vitriolic first presidential debate a few evenings ago. We have divisions as nations, divisions of religious beliefs, divisions of just about everything. It's so incredibly easy to place labels, to make someone else the "other." I'm often guilty of labelling people, too. If someone acts in a way I don't like, I'll label them as incompetent, as stupid, as lazy. That's a personal flaw, but I think the way a lot of people approach broader labelling. One action or even set of actions doesn't define a person, in the same way that the actions of one person or one group, don't necessarily define an entire set of people.

I don't know why, but I think our tendency as humans is to point out flaws. We critique everything. We critique all things from what we ate for lunch to our presidential candidates. I think that evolutionarily it probably comes from a desire to improve; e.g., if your hunting technique can be improved, you improve it because it helps you eat. From that same vein of thinking, we generalize to protect ourselves. We generalize all hungry tigers as dangerous because if you come into contact with a hungry tiger, you've got a good chance of dying. I think sometimes that our brains overplay that rule of thought, and we start to apply it to personal characteristics and demographics instead of understanding how important what we have in common is.

The most important thing us humans have in common is just that: we're all humans. We're capable of love, of change, of hate, fear, and compassion. Every single one of us has a beating heart in our chest and a brain between our ears. That's beautiful. If you're religious, you say it's a God or gods that unites us. If you're not, the beauty is inherent in that in some way we all share the same makeup. We're all skin and bones. We're capable of feeling for one another and committing unbelievable acts of kindness. We all know humans are capable of opposite acts of terror and hatred, but aren't those the outliers?

I was struck in the last few days by the response to the death of Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez. He was an incredible pitcher, but I saw baseball fans and non-baseball fans all grieving the loss of someone who was just generally a good person. I knew Jose Fernandez only as a pitcher on an opposing team, but that didn't stop my eyes from tearing up when I saw the sadness of his teammates. We as humans have that connection; we see someone else suffering, and our hearts tell us to feel for them and with them. The labels we place on each other are what tell us differently. We train our brains to say, "They're different from me. They don't deserve my compassion." All of the problems in the world are a direct result of forgetting the humanity of those around us.

Something I think is interesting is hearing stories about deep idealogical changes in people. For example, a bigoted man may openly hate homosexuals, only to find out that his son is gay. That story can go two ways: one, he maintains his bigotry and is estranged from his son. Two, he has a change of heart and continues loving his son as he had before, realizing he was wrong about homosexuals in general (way oversimplified, but you get the idea). Another example on a less potentially hateful scale is this: we simply don't understand things until we encounter them. Perhaps, we don't see the big problem with the refugee crisis, but then we meet a refugee and our perspective changes. They're just like us. We're all so similar despite what divides us.

The divisions I tend to make are idealogical in that it bothers me very much when other people have biases, discriminations, or hatred for others. I've noticed a lot of othering in the American political race. If you support Trump, to Hillary supporters you are subhuman, incomprehensible, and the reason for the downfall of modern progress. If you support Hillary, to Trump supporters, you too are subhuman, supporting the devil himself. We take our point-of-view and what we think is best, and we generalize because that's how we're programmed to survive. That's how we see the world improving.

I know what I think politically, but perhaps I take pause because I have family members who support Trump. At first, I just couldn't believe it. I knew they weren't hateful people, but I also knew that they support a hateful man. Previously, I had thought that anyone who supported Trump must themselves be hateful, but I know that to not be true. I've had to dig within me to understand why Trump is appealing to people. I had to focus on the fact that political divisions are a human institution, but they're not part of our humanity. Trump supporters are still human. They're deserving of love. When we let these divides seed too deeply, we see fights at rallys. We see hateful rhetoric and shameful acts.

I was struck by a quote from Anne Frank. "In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart." I think that this is something we must keep in mind. We're all, by nature, good. We learn hate. We learn fear. We learn the labels and the divides. Perhaps, Anne Frank had similar thoughts to me in wondering how Hitler could have risen to power. Was every German hateful? Did every German want the Jews dead? Of course not.

So, I ramble a bit, but my thoughts boil down to a simple idea. Despite our divides, find some common ground. Confront your divides head on. Explore why other people think how they do. Instead of writing them off, explore how their brain works and try to squeeze into their shoes. See what motivates their hearts. Find a way to realize how united we all are despite our differences.

I think rediscovering unity is the key to the worlds' problems. Seeing all people as equal humans can end wars, stop climate change, and inspire change. I wrote a post a few months ago about respecting opinions, and I think my words were too harsh. We needn't necessarily respect hateful opinions, but we should listen, and we should learn. The world succeeds together, and it fails together. World War II doesn't happen with one man. It happens when a whole civilization forgets our common humanity. I hope more than anything that moving forward, humans can remember that we're all human.