Accepting Differences

The only way to live in peace with others is to learn to accept differences.

Once the idea that differences exist has been accepted, and that, although some are positive, others might not be to our liking, we need to understand that social life obliges us to tolerate even the things we do not like, and this is to our advantage. In order to live in a state of relative peace, the groups of people who occupy the same territory can work out a common system of rules and prohibitions that ensure that the threshold of violence will not be overstepped, in other words that individual episodes of intolerance are immediately checked. The first rule is that of equality among human beings: this does not mean denying that we all have our own specific characteristics that make us different from others, it is the confirmation that all people have equal rights.

"Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose".
- Billie Holiday

We all see things differently. It is part of the wonderful variety of the world that we all have different points of view.

When we stubbornly refuse to let friends or family members speak their ideas simply because we disagree with them, we risk the loss of a friend or the understanding of a family member.

It is when we allow others to disagree that we take a step forward -- a step that opens our ears and our hearts to all sorts of people and ideas.

Here is a story to illustrate accepting differences:

Accepting Differences In People
By Karen Lynn Vidra , The Texas Tornado

The little boy sat dejectedly at a table in the school cafeteria. Even though the room was full of happy children, the little boy felt hopeless and alone.

The child was quite the handsome young man with his flyaway white-blonde hair, big, bright-blue eyes, and fair skin. He wore glasses, and he wore hearing-aids in his ears.

He was in a wheelchair, and he wore leg braces. He couldn't walk except for short distances--and then, when he DID walk, he used forearm crutches. He was in a wheelchair because he had muscular dystrophy.

The little boy's name was Johnathon Sandusky--"Johnny" to family and friends. He was all of nine years old.

The reason Johnny felt so sad and so alone was because there were kids who enjoyed nothing more than picking on him.

They called him HORRIBLE names--names like "Four-Eyes." "Dummy." And worse.

Like this morning, for example. Upon getting off the wheelchair lift on the bus there was mean old Pete Blades and his cronies, who were just WAITING for him--waiting to barrage him with their cruel remarks.

"Oh, look! There's ol' 'Four-Eyes!'" the bullies cried, laughing cruelly. "He is so STUPID! That's why he's in the RETARD class!!"

At this, Johnny's pale cheeks turned even whiter, and his blue eyes filled with tears. His heart hammered in his little chest, and he broke out in a cold sweat. He was determined not to cry, but he didn't make it, even when he desparately tried to blink back the tears.

At the sight of Johnny's tears, the bullies started laughing all the harder. Louder. They began saying things like "Aww, whatsa matter? You gonna' cwy now?" "You gonna' cry for your MAMA??"

Johnny knew he was "different" from a lot of the other kids at school. Most of the other kids were NOT in wheelchairs, and they didn't have trouble seeing or hearing, let alone, walking or even learning. And--they didn't have to worry about dying.

Johnny's disease was fatal. In time it would ultimately kill him.

WHY MUST THEY MAKE FUN OF ME? Johnny wondered, scrubbing at the tears on his grimy little cheeks. I JUST WANT TO BE LIKE ANYBODY ELSE----

It did NOT help that one of his sisters, Ronee', was a bona-fide genius. People were ALWAYS comparing him to his sister.

At this, white-hot anger boiled up inside him. IT'S NOT FAIR!! he said to himself. I TRY MY BEST!! WHY IS IT SO HARD FOR ME TO LEARN??

Now, Johnny sat at the table in the cafeteria, alone in the midst of happy, laughing children. He felt absolutely worthless. Hopelessly alone. Nobody even seemed to notice that he was even there....This made him feel sadder and sadder.

Then came the day when a boy approached his wheelchair. The boy smiled at him....

This was the very first time anyone approached him in a friendly way.

He didn't seem to notice Johnny's leg braces. Hearing-aids. Thick eyeglasses. The wheelchair. The crutches in the back of the wheelchair. All he saw was a little boy who desparately needed a friend.

And this was exactly what happened. Johnny now had a friend he could FINALLY call his own.

The boy's name was Jose.