It is 2016 and we pride ourselves on how widely accepting we believe our generation to be. There is just one problem with that belief: we are not exceptionally accepting. In fact, we are barely accepting at all.
It is easy to get along with the people who are just like us, are in the same groups as us, or hold the same beliefs as us. It is not easy to get along with people who do not fit our type. Our version of acceptance is about as good as the Plastics' version of acceptance in Mean Girls. We let people in our lives, approve of them, validate their choices, and proverbially let them "sit with us" as long as they meet our terms. Otherwise, we are mean to them at best. What kind of sick, malicious acceptance is that?
What is the thing that makes us so quickly draw lines and decide who is worth our kind words and who will get our venomous spatter? Labels. We give everyone a label and the very same label that puts people up on a pedestal with some will throw them in the gutter with others. What some people hate the most will be what others find the most honorable. It is just a fact of life. However, a less known fact is that we can still have really great relationships with people who are nothing like us.
Whenever we are picking who we sanctify and who we demonize, we need to take into consideration that people are a myriad of things. We are all beautiful mosaics. Some of us are made of many colors. We have all kinds of aspects and depth. Others of us are dominated more by certain colors. There are fewer layers, but the ones that are there are more developed and refined. All of us have beauty within us and all of us have worth. When we treat someone like they are less human because of the things in their life that we do not like, we are not dulling their beauty. We are dirtying ours.
If we truly want to be accepting of others, we have to be accepting of everyone. Yes. I said everyone. That does not mean that we have to be best friends with everyone, but it does mean that we at least have to treat everyone like they are human. That means that we have to love those people we find hard to love. We need to look out for what is best for them.
Shouldn't it be possible to love someone without agreeing with everything in their life? Shouldn't we be able to work alongside people who are different than us in harmony? It isn't rocket science. It is just being a decent human being. No, we will never all be the same, but can't we at least try to get along?
We shouldn't treat being half-nice to a person we don't agree with as a special sort of charity. We shouldn't listen to what a person who isn't like us has to say with a condescending smile on our faces. We aren't better than anyone else. We're just different. Perhaps acceptance shouldn't be a thing at all. Perhaps the answer is just treating others with the same decency we would like to be treated rather than picking and choosing who gets to be in our "group" of society and who doesn't.
