During the past 50+ years, with my military career as well as personally, I have traveled to over 30 different countries and many states as well. Of all the countries our family visited, I’ve lived and worked for six months or more in many of them. As I traveled, I had a chance to pay attention to our human commonalities.
During those years, my family and I have been blessed to live with people from different ethnic groups, socioeconomic strata, and educational backgrounds. They all had varying religious beliefs, cultural diversities, and values. As a result, I was able to grow to appreciate and be open to these varying differences. According to an article on commonalities on a site titled, “Under 30 CEO” they list, as human beings, we desire these same five things.
The Five Human Commonalities
What we desire is basically the same around the world. Each of us carries a belief that we have the right to:
- Health: We all deserve clean water and safe conditions at home and work.
- Justice: We want to live in a just world, with the knowledge that we are equal, regardless of our socioeconomic status.
- Education: We want to better ourselves through fair and proper education.
- Safety: People want to be free of threats… to be able to live freely and without fear of persecution.
- Love and Belonging: We need meaningful relationships with friends, family, and our community.
While cultural differences, conditioning, education, and environmental influences can change the way we interpret what these desires mean, the root terms are the same.
What else I noticed regarding all the above universal common needs, those needs get accentuated during natural disasters like earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and fires…and sadly…even mass shootings…initially, humanity comes together, regardless of any differences.
Even though we certainly wouldn’t wish any of these disasters on anyone…we certainly have all too often been offered the opportunity to extend a helping hand physically or financially and due to the increased numbers and severity of these disasters, let’s not allow this to be the only way to reach out with kindness.
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and headstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. “ President Lincoln’s March 4, 1861, Inaugural Address.
The Prayer of St. Francis is one of the best known and best loved prayers in the world today. Attributed traditionally to St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)…this feels timely:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, 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,
Let’s not wait for another disaster to continue showing our light and love to those in our sphere of influence. And by all means let’s vote accordingly as well. Progress, not perfection Warriors!
Covid Humor: Being quarantined with a talkative child is like having an insane parrot glued to your shoulder.