We May Not Relate to Everyone but We Might Need to Hear What They Have to Say

We like people who are like us; it’s likely a survival instinct that served us once upon a time. Except I now notice when I start to feel some invisible barriers trying to erect themselves between me and another simply because of our differences. It is precisely where those barriers arise that can sometimes indicate an area of growth for me.

For example, I have enjoyed reading some really short articles from a particular author over the last few years, who publishes only the briefest of insights and observations about life. They are the type of insights and observations that also come up within me, so I asked him whether he has his story published anywhere. I am fascinated by the divergent backdrops in people’s stories that still result in the same understanding of why we are here and how to be successful in a meaningful way.

His reply was a bit curt, but he mentioned bits of his story came out now and again in his blogs and he’d written about it in one of his books. So, ever the Google investigator, I managed to discover a little of his background.

Between the curt reply and a single fact I then discovered about who he presents as in the world in the introduction to one of his books, I noticed when I next got notification about a new article of his, a barrier had crept up.

This has brought awareness to the judgments I’ve made. I decided to attribute the best possible motives to his curt reply, likely just a factor of time and timing, also being aware of the irony of enjoying his short-and-to-the-point articles and yet not liking the same in a personal response.

The other factor that rubbed up against my own choices was the mention of religion in the backdrop of his life. While this is something I used to have an almost allergic reaction to, I’ve arrived at a point summed up beautifully in the Chinese proverb There are many paths to the top of the mountain but the view is still the same. So I found it interesting I was still having any kind of a reaction at all.

The great win out of this is that I am now conscious of these kinds of barriers I used to put up subconsciously. I am also conscious these are the kinds of barriers people can put up or let down when they talk to me or read my articles.

Even knowing this fellow and I share the same ideas about life at a deeper level, just in a slightly different packaging, I recognised some of my old patterns reverberating. I won’t feed them, I simply recognise them and will let them fade to a distant echo and continue to enjoy reading his short insights.

That is why I feel each person’s story is of value, and would encourage everyone to share their story with others, precisely because not everyone relates to just one person. Even if I do relate to someone in general terms, I’m not going to relate to everything they say.

For example, another of my favourite authors published an article about the one difference between men and women that men just don’t get. It was that women have regular moments in which they fear for their lives, almost on a daily basis (and it intensifies when they have others they care about in their life, like children), whereas for men it happens in distinct moments they can likely count on one hand.

I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with this premise, it just didn’t resonate for me right there and then, but it did intrigue me. Based on my experience with this author there will come a point in my own life’s experiences where I will revisit this notion and be able to express it in a way that makes sense to me.

At the moment it sits there like an object to be observed and considered, which is fascinating in itself.

Then, of course, there are the people I know but generally don’t relate to at all – and no matter what they say I am in danger of disregarding it. This is something I need to be aware of too because each person may have something to say that inspires some further insight within me.

I find, for example, that when I’m dealing with doctors I have to be mindful of that bias. After years of frustration with the health system, I was forced to seek answers to my wellbeing and vitality elsewhere. Now when I’m dealing with practitioners in the health system I know I’m seeking a diagnostic opinion only, rather than a drug or surgery if other more natural alternatives are available.

That said, I know there are many practitioners in our health systems who, while they can’t necessarily prescribe or professionally recommend alternative treatments, are often users and supporters of these within their own families.

That was a journey that started in early adulthood, with me having blind faith in a health system and its practitioners and, frankly, a tentative mistrust of anything alternative. My early judgments came from the values and beliefs I’d adopted within my family and community. Fast forward a quarter century and those values and beliefs have changed radically, through a willingness to open up to possibilities and – now – many years of personal experience and knowledge.

In sharing our stories and our insights, for each person who is disinterested, there may be another who needed to hear it right then to inspire their expansion and growth.

​If you have read or heard something you disagree with, just sit with that for a while and wonder at why it got your barriers up, is there something in there for you to explore and open up to in your own life? What judgments are you carrying that are not even really your own? Life can open up immensely when we are willing to open up to it.

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