In all honesty, The United States of America was never entirely united. People have always been separated for absurd reasons such as religion, race, sexual orientation and personal lifestyle decisions. Despite the core values, the majority of us have shared, individualism and diversity was always an immensely large aspect of our national culture. The issue with our diversity was never the varying degrees of beliefs and lifestyles in our country. In fact, the real problem with our diverse culture is our own selfish entitlement. The entitlement we all possess is a different kind of entitlement. We don't think ourselves entitled to money or goods. Instead, our entitlement consists of us seeing ourselves as constantly right. We think that we should get what we want because in our minds we're right, and those against us are wrong.

"We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say."- Zeno Of Citium

In fact, can any of us define what it means to be right? To a conservative, owning a gun might be right. To a liberal, a woman's right to choose might be right. Who's to say what's right? You. Me. Us. Instead of focusing on dividing ourselves into groups and drawing lines in the sand, why have we never pondered creating a united front? Where is our concept of compromise? Why are we lacking in compromise but flourishing in control?

"Compromise is what binds people together. Compromise is sharing and conciliatory, it is love and kind and unselfish."-Ali Harris

The answer may be our selfish entitlement. Or it could be our inability to see outside our own point of view. As human beings, only the first person perspective is ever at our disposal. This gives us the ability to embody strong feelings and beliefs. Yet, it hinders us from ever seeing the world through someone else's eyes. This is the exact reason the human mind has the capacity to feel compassion and empathy. Our mouths are meant to ask questions and our minds were made to understand. Instead, we reduce ourselves to judging superiority.

"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply."-Stephen R. Covey

It's immensely easy to paint someone else as the villain in our own stories. Yet it's unfathomable that we could be the villain in somebody else's story. Owning our own flaws is the hardest thing imaginable. Not the flaws that we see in ourselves, but the flaws others see in us. Those are the flaws that are painful to accept. We try to take other's rights away through the legal system because we see our own rights as valid and other's rights as entitlement.

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."- C.G. Jung

Fighting for ourselves is easy when we think ourselves right. Fighting for what we believe in is simple. Understanding someone else's plight is harder. The hardest part for us to accept is that we don't have to compromise on our own beliefs to accept others. Maybe the key to a united front is not fighting over who is right, but fighting for each other in order to be right.