Fear of the UnknownSegregating OurselvesHow to Quickly Share Your Thoughts
Let's continue to work on the concept of fear because I believe that fear and love are the two most basic motivators in life. Often times we don't do things out of fear. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear we won't be liked or appreciated or validated. We fear our differences -- in race, religions, cultures, nationalities. We fear mostly the unknown.
Fear of the UnknownThat's pretty normal, I think, especially when we haven't had experience in a certain area or haven't met people who may be culturally or spiritually or racially different from ourselves. We may have been raised with preconceived stereotypes. Or we may have known people from a different ethnic group or culture or religion who left us with impressions which were not positive. And because of those experiences -- and fear -- we tend to make generalizations. I am sure you can all think of your own personal examples, perhaps some very recent.
When I first traveled to South Africa, I had some fear. It was just after Nelson Mandela became president. I was visiting my pen pal of many decades for the first time, and my friends were saying, "What if you don't like her or her family? What if you don't like South Africa? What if they are really different from us in Canada?
I'd written to Jeannette at that point for almost 25 years, so I wasn't too worried we wouldn't like each other. I knew her family or most of it, and they knew me. Her sister and brother-in-law weren't exactly welcoming. But I wasn't visiting them, so I thought, "Hey, I don't always like everyone I meet in Canada, either, but I'm not going to generalize and say all South Africans are like these people -- because they're not."
Eventually I won over the sister and brother-in-law, but, then again, that was fear. They, I think, thought all Canadians lived in igloos and were (grin) the great "unwashed." During my second visit, they were very happy to see me, but it took us getting to know one another and experiencing each other to realize that we were more similar than different.
I loved the differences. I loved experiencing the diversity in cultures and in food and just in the vastness of South Africa itself. I came to love South Africa as much as I love Canada, and I have no fear about visiting that part of the world now. I just wish I could go more often. And I found out that we were more similar than we all thought. We had the same hopes, the same dreams, for ourselves and the children.
One of the ways to eradicate our fears is to have as wide and diverse experience as we can. My own country, Canada, has a very diverse population (similar to that of the U.S., but, rather than thinking of ourselves as a melting pot, we Canadians think of ourselves as a multi-cultural mosaic -- a type of tapestry made of many parts, still united by living in Canada, but celebrating our differences as well as our similarities.
Throughout the summer months, many communities in Canada have festivals celebrating that cultural diversity. There's Carribana in Toronto (which is "safe" now folks, come on up and visit) at the beginning of August. There are the Highland Games, which celebrate Celtic culture in Ontario and Nova Scotia. In the Niagara Peninsula, where I live, we have "ethnic weeks," when you can sample foods and watch various cultural groups entertain. It's one of the times I look forward to each summer and share with friends from home or away.
Each of us is proud of our heritage, and we're all proud of the nations where we live -- whether it's Canada or the U.S. or any of the 48 other nations represented in the membership of eSight. It's just a part of who we are. But I like to think of myself as a global citizen, too, and that the world is my home.
Shirley Maclaine, actress and author, put it this way: "The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends."
Go to Top of PageSegregating OurselvesAnd so it is with persons who are disabled (whether blind, visually impaired, deaf, physically disabled or mentally challenged). Oftentimes we segregate ourselves into our "own" groups out of fear. We assume that people with other disabilities aren't like us, so they wouldn't understand our particular problems or issues. We think we are unique -- and we are in many ways -- yet we are all still individuals. We all may have different histories, but, after talking with people who are different from us, we also find that our stories are the same.
John Denver called it the "Windstar Spirit." It's you and me working together for a greater cause. You do a little, I do a little and together we can get it done. It doesn't have to be you versus me or "them versus us" -- just we, you and me working together.
And so it goes with working. Or going to school. Or going to church. Or eating different foods. Or getting out into new neighborhoods and exploring the differences but finding the similarities. The people you assume are strangers and someone to be feared -- such as the able-bodied community, for example, may just be people who can and will become your friends. They may also be having a new experience in getting to know you, just as you are in getting to know them. And, as my mom used to say, "They're probably just as afraid of you as you are of them; go out and show them you're nothing to be afraid of."
Madam Curie, the scientist, once said, "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."
Stephen R Covey said it another way in his book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." He wrote, "Seek first to understand, rather than to be understood."
That's the same thought St. Francis of Assisi expresses in his Simple Prayer:
"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.
Where there is doubt, let me sow faith.
Where there is despair, let me sow hope.
Where there is sadness, let me sow joy.
O Divine Master, grant that
I may not so much seek:
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood, as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
It is in dying that we are born to Eternal life."
Maybe if we start as individuals to eradicate fear -- and the other emotions connected with it (judgement, hate, mistrust) among ourselves -- the world's nations will learn to eradicate fear from themselves, and we'll see what we have in common more so than our differences
It starts with you and me. Are you ready to take my hand and walk a mile in my shoes while I walk a mile in yours?
Tell me stories about the experiences you have had or are having with diversity in your life. What are your fears about meeting with people different from yourself? How have you tackled those fears? What kinds of experiences have you had?
Go to Top of PageHow to Quickly Share Your ThoughtsYou can quickly share your thoughts with other new members of eSight by returning to the e-mail notice you received as a subscriber to the eNMG (eSight New Member Guide) list and selecting "Reply."
If you have not yet subscribed to the eNMG list, you can do so now by sending an e-mail with your e-mail address in the body of the message to
esight-new-member-guide-subscribe@mlm.tabinc.org and then confirming with a reply.
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