To say that the universe is bigger than you could ever possibly comprehend is a gross understatement. It may be humbling, but in the grand scheme of space, you mean absolutely nothing. You are less than a minuscule spec that resides in an endless void where time doesn't exist. The crazy thing is that all the matter in the universe is made up of atoms, vestiges from its initial creation. Think about it: if matter can't be created or destroyed, quite literally everything, from a car to a giraffe is basically just made up of repurposed 13.7 billion-year-old leftovers of collapsed stars and space dust. And in the infinite cosmos, of all the things that matter could've been, it became you, the same way that it came together to form every other person on the planet. And despite being genetically 99.9% similar, and being as far as we know the only humanoid species in the universe, we see one another as "other than" ourselves.

In that vast eternal void, the thing that you're most similar to is the person that you do your best to avoid eye contact with on the bus. The homeless guy that you pretend not to see. The kid from high school that you're arguing with on Twitter about politics or ideology. It may not seem like it, but through a larger frame of reference you might as well be identical, and the minutia that separates you means nothing.

So why is it that we close ourselves off to other people? We are all zipping around the solar system on spaceship Earth, with eternity extending out in every direction, and yet we focus in on the smallest details about one another and use that fixation to exclude people from our lives. We do this with no regard for how little these differences mean in the context of the grand vacuum of space.

Why aren't the astronomical odds stacked against a uniform lifeform like us even existing enough common ground enough for us to be fascinated by the differences between us, rather than intimidated by them? I'm not saying everyone's going to be your friend because let's be honest, a lot of people are just the worst. However, it seems strange that we go about our lives completely ambivalent to the people outside of our typical circles, limiting our horizons without thought or reason.

It's a lot harder to put into action than it is to say, because we have, for lack of a better word, a very earthly mindset. It's hard to wrap your head around the fact that a lot of concepts that we OURSELVES created, then allowed to become divisive, don't really mean anything outside of our own little-manufactured reality. It is undoubtedly difficult, we all judge people almost immediately, it's hard not to, but it really is exhausting and kind of pointless.

I'm not saying love everyone, I'm saying give people a shot, then make an informed decision. See what you can learn from them because it really will surprise you. Some of the best things you'll learn are from people you disagree with, in short, because they have a different mindset than you.