Celebrate Similarity

I’ve seen it around multiple places....on bumper stickers, billboards, social media posts, all over really.  It’s often placed against different back drops but the key words are still the same........Celebrate Diversity.

At face value is seems like a beautiful and enlightening slogan.  But on a practical level, is it really that good of a concept to focus on?  Maybe I’m splitting hairs here but in order to celebrate diversity the first thing one must do is identify what ways someone is different.  Then, once those differences are identified.......to celebrate them.  While this seems nice, in all actuality its not exactly practical based on human nature.  When was the last time you were drawn to someone due to how different they were than you?  

We are currently living in one of the most fractured societies in the modern era, where people are more divided than ever.  Is it any wonder that a society that focuses on how different they are would struggle to unite when fixated on all the ways in which they are not alike?

So what if we tried something different?  What if we instead sought to “Celebrate Similarity?”

What if we placed the emphasis not on how different we all are but rather how alike we are?  I might be naive, but I’m of the belief that no matter how different two people might be, due to the fact that we are human, we are still more alike than we are different.  In all honesty, its difficult to get excited about things we don’t have in common with someone else, but to the contrary, if celebration is what is sought, then perhaps the path to take is the one that is more likely to lead to positive feelings, such as this positive feelings that often emerge when we realize we have something in common with another person.  

For a society so focused on differences......maybe the path to to unity is not to look for all the ways in which we are different...but to look for all the ways in which we are the same.