Friday, March 6, 2009

Differences are not contradictions

“Differences are not contradictions. They can help each other and immensely enhance each other. The woman or friend or any other person who loves you but has different thinking than you can enhance your creativity, can inspire you to reach heights you have never dreamed of.” - OSHO

“I don’t think abundance and spirituality are mutually exclusive or that it is wrong to desire material things. For instance while I personally cherish a life with minimum possessions, I admire abundance, for it brings along with it security and confidence and these eventually help preserve our freedom.” Dr. Abdul Kalam

Above-mentioned words of these two great personalities stimulated several questions in my mind like
- Why can’t we be tolerant enough to accommodate thinking, which is different than our own?
- Why we always perceive differences between two people as negative thing rather than using it in a constructive way?
- Why we can’t believe two people having different thoughts can complement each other in spite of so many notable examples in front of us.

What really matters is, the way Abdul Kalam expresses through above words, I may believe into something but at the same time I also recognize existence as well as importance of the other side of the reality. For me one thing can be wrong which I may not follow but at the same time I can’t dictate the same thing can’t be right for someone else. The other person might feel it right and I should respect his/her thoughts as well. But accepting other’s existence doesn’t convert me into that person. For example, my friend and I often have different point of views on a topic and used to have long arguments on it but it has never affected our relationship, and I often feel that differences in opinions has added new dimension to my thinking and has made it more inclusive rather than destroying my thinking as an individual. In an effort to understand each other’s point people come closer, which may help both of them mature together.

Society is like vegetable salad plate. Combination of different vegetables makes salad tastier. Similarly society, as a whole, is a sum of different schools of thoughts. Each of them has different taste but amalgamations of them don’t contradict each other’s existence rather it makes the culture more interesting and enrich them with its diversity.

Even in our personal life we constantly want others to confirm to our thoughts and whosoever fails to do so, instantly becomes an alien figure to us, who cannot fit into our social circle. Often we fail to understand that “Differences are not Contradictions”.

1 comment:

  1. Its true and that example of salad was extremely great... Now I have to think on it.. It will helpful for my personal life.

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