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Why do we still fear being different?

With all that I have gone through these past four months, and all the time I have to think these days, I can’t help but think about my mortality. I think about the world, how it is structured, how I got here on earth, and how earth got here. I think about the universe and my place in it.

As a kid, I would ask myself big questions constantly. How did stars get here? Who made earth? Who made the guy that made earth? Where did it all start? I would talk to my friends about it for hours, pondering all of these big questions until my brain literally hurt. I just couldn’t comprehend it. Still can’t completely.

None of us truly know all of the answers. We may think we do, from the beliefs that our parents have passed down, or what we have learned in our Temples, Churches, Mosques, or Monasteries. But at the end of the day, I feel that none of us are absolutely certain of everything. That is ok. I have learned that it is ok have unanswered questions. Some things in life aren’t meant to have definitive answers.

Unfortunately, rather than embracing the unknown, we often choose to fear it. But if we knew the answers to everything, then we wouldn’t have faith. Faith is especially important to me now. It pushes us forward, and should bring us all closer together.

I realize I run a very sensitive, slippery slope when speaking about religion because people do have such strong faiths and convictions. I want to express very clearly that I am all for religion and people embracing their beliefs. Whatever avenue ultimately makes you a more complete, caring, and honorable person is the way to go. Since this is my blog with my thoughts, I want to make sure that I don’t filter my own internal beliefs, which come really from my heart.

I love the idea behind religion. I am all for it. It is a way to find that peace. It helps our minds get a grasp on all of these unknowns that we can’t quite put a finger on. Religion provides us with the concept that there is more than just this life on earth. It reassures us that we will be in a nice place in the afterlife, if this life is followed correctly. Religion also provides us with a moral guideline while living this current life. So this is all a very good thing. Only good should come from this.

We have a human need to share our faith and belief with others. We may even feel that our religion is the correct one, making every other faith and belief the wrong way to go. But where we get in trouble is when we can’t accept that someone else may think different. What happens here? War. So many wars, because we can’t accept the fact that we are not all supposed to be the same.

Let’s say for a moment that we all share one God, a single creator of all of us. Then why are we not all the same color, with the same personalities, and the same religion? Wouldn’t that have been so much easier? The answer is yes. It would be much easier. But the world would never evolve. It would be so boring. There would be no challenges, or growth or change. We are supposed to be different, to think different, to challenge each other with all that we don’t know. We should be embracing that. We should be loving each other for that.

Different is how we ultimately evolve as a society, rather than doing the same thing over and over. Different makes us think more. Different is where invention and re-invention comes from. Instead, our fear of different gets in the way too often. We can’t seem to handle the fact that others believe in something other than what we believe in. If we are to truly to have eternal bliss in this life and the next, the first step would be to understand that the world is not meant to be one look and one belief. If it was meant to be that way, it would have been structured that way from the start of our civilization.

I believe that we shouldn’t live this life in fear of the next one. I believe that the answer is very simple. If we are honest and loving, respectful to each other, and loyal, then we will all be just fine in this life and beyond. We need to embrace each other and love each other for how unique and different we all really are, while also understanding just how similar we are.

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