Hello my friends
I am having a bit of a philosophical day today ... Having been fortunate enough to have travelled extensively throughout the world and having worked with just about every nationality the world has to offer… I am pondering on the many wonders of the world, the people within it and what makes us all unique, diverse and yet the same ...
I'm not going to give you any elaborately interesting article today ... rather.... just some thoughts running through my mind … that you may like to ponder on, as well, when you have 5 minutes to spare or you may choose to disregard with some comment like … ok, she’s having another one of her brainwaves!!! Hehehehehe
I was posting in AdlandPro this afternoon and thinking …AdlandPro has nearly 40,000 members, out of that 40,000 we may have 100 or 1000 or 10,000 friends in our network. It may be impossible to know them all, as much as we would like to but I know I am blessed with many, many new friends, team mates, collaborators, networkers and adopted family members ...
Some people are closer to me than others... some I am getting closer to … some I hardly know….. Some may not share my opinions, my sense of humour or my getting up to mischief, some may have the wrong opinion about me, some may think I am off the wall at times but hey… isn’t that what makes life and people so beautiful and interesting?
Every one of our near 40,000 members comes in a different package, tall, short, big, small, some with physical impairments, some with personalities larger than life …. Some with smiles, some with sadness, some with dreams and aspirations, some with despair, some who sail through like a ship in the night and others that choose to make AdlandPro their second home.
What I find beautiful and phenomenal is that every member has a different background, a different upbringing, a different sense of humour, different sensitivities, different cultural beliefs, different traditions, different religions, different political views and different languages … some speak English very well, some have English as a second language, some have speech impediments, some can’t speak at all and yet, what draws us all together, in unison, is this wonderful “want” to communicate and share with others.
Each and every member can teach us something if we listen closely and each and every one of those members might like to learn something, we can teach them, if we give them half the chance.
People come here from all walks of life and, yes, they may not agree with our opinions all the time but that does not make them wrong ... it does not make them less worthy of our respect, our love and our attention ... it does not mean we should shut this person out or, personally, attack them…. Or even try to turn others against them…. The truth is … when we use this approach we are only hurting ourselves and others around us.
Someone once said to me: … “you can’t go through life without hurting people, at some point, but the fewer you hurt the better you will have done in your life”.
At the end of the day, we are all human beings, we can all hurt and be hurt, we all cry the same way, our heart is broken the same way, we laugh the same way... we all have our sensitivities to one subject, or another ... but in order to live in harmony, we have to respect one another, we need to be more sensitive to others’ sensitivities … “the live and let live syndrome”, with respect.
In my thread about forum etiquette someone said to me that this is not a Utopian society … I agree … but I, also, believe that I can make my environment, and the world I choose to create around me a Utopian society … not by means of force or violence or shouting when I disagree with someone, or when they disagree with me …. But by trying to understand … by being present and listening, without passing judgement…., by treating people as I wish to be treated and by allowing them to be who they are around me … without forcing my opinions on them … I find that the less I impose myself, or my views, on someone, the less they try to impose upon me …
I was accused, recently, of being weak for not posting my opinions, in certain forums, on certain matters … I was not offended by the comment and I can assure everyone that it is not because of weakness, nor for lack of opinions … I believe it takes a stronger person to keep their mouth shut at the right time … than it does to behave like a firecracker and pop at will … adding fuel to the fire is not the way to put a fire out … and two wrongs don’t make a right …
When one friend of mine is hurting … I hurt too … if two friends of mine are hurting … I feel even worse … If I call a person my friend … why on earth would I want to see them hurt? … and if I call the group of people in my network, my friends … then why would I want them all to hurt? … by bringing into the public eye disputes on private issues …
There is a time, a place and a way for dealing with everything … including hurt … but please not in our public community. Maybe we cannot make this a Utopian Community but we can make a difference by starting with ourselves and our attitudes towards others.
I love this community…. And all its diversity… Do you?
Have a lovely week all. Call me an idealist, or send me a private message telling me I’m stupid, if you like, but please be respectful in your public posts, even if you do not agree with my opinion. (Just in case!!!)