My generation is so quick to judge and so quick to place blame. It's something that each and every one of us needs to work on. It's human nature to fear what we do not understand, and I think that we are seeing that more than ever in the current political climate of our country. Perhaps it is out of fear that we confine friendships to groups of people who think and believe the same things that we do. We often don't want to know what the other side has to say, and honestly, that's sad. It's sad that our generation, that claims to be so open-minded, is afraid to befriend those who don't share our point of view.

Perhaps it is easier to write off the other side as "heartless" or "uninformed," but what would happen if you took the time to listen? I recently watched a TED Talk that Megan Phelps-Roper gave that made me think a lot about the importance of listening. If you don't know who Megan Phelps-Roper is, she used to be a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, but she left after she started listening to others' perspectives outside of her church. One thing she pointed out is that as passionately and adamantly you believe something, there is someone in the world who believes just as passionately and adamantly the opposite of you.

I grew up in Wisconsin, so a majority of my high school friends are pretty liberal. They go to schools that are a far cry from the conservative southern university that I go to. That being said, since I go to a school in southern Alabama, you can bet that a majority of my college friends are Republicans. On some issues, I side with my liberal friends, but on other issues, I side with my conservative friends. That means that I disagree with each side on a lot of issues. However, I've heard both sides of the arguments and I understand why my friends think the way they do and I don't think any less of them because they disagree with me.

I have some friends that are as conservative as you could possibly imagine. Sometimes people question the humanity of Republicans, but I've listened to my most conservative friends' arguments and can understand why they believe what they believe. The reasoning for their stance actually has nothing to do with hate. In fact, I have incredibly conservative friends are some of the kindest people I've ever met.

The same goes with my super far-left liberal friends. I don't always agree with them on everything, but I listen to them, and I've learned to understand where they're coming from. I know that their heart is in the right place and they want to make a difference to help others-- just like my conservative friends.

I've learned that people are rarely what we label them to be. We are so quick to judge others and we love to argue using highly-emotional buzzwords. If we just stopped arguing for a second and started listening, we'd all see that our political beliefs don't make us who we are. Just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're lacking compassion, humanity, or common sense. Like I said earlier, we fear what we don't understand. So instead of getting upset with people that you don't agree with, hear them out and try to understand why they take their stance.

Everyone has their own reasons for their beliefs, and if you took the time to listen, you might realize that the other side isn't so scary after all. Most Americans have the same fears, regardless of their political views. For example, both Republicans and Democrats are afraid of shooters, they just have different ideas on how to stop them. Both sides have valid arguments. It's actually like that for most issues. We're not that different after all.

I'm not going to lose friends over politics. I'm not going to shut people out of my life because of their views on immigration, abortion, gun laws, etc.. I believe that the friendships I have are far too precious to throw away over a political argument. Afterall, when all is said and done, you don't actually need to agree on everything to be friends with someone. You don't need to sit around and talk about politics all the time. You can go have fun without even mentioning Donald Trump. Good friends are hard to find, so don't let politics come between that. It's just not worth it. If you can't engage in a civilized conversation about politics, just agree to disagree.