A Challenge.

I’ve been thinking about something that my International Politics professor once told me. “When you first meet someone, try to refrain from talking about religion and politics. If you become friends with this person, put off these controversial conversations for as long as you can and see how well your friendship does without it”. That got me thinking about whether or not friendships are forged based on how we agree/disagree with people about controversial issues today. Do we naturally want people whom we agree with as friends? If that’s so, then are we even making the effort to really learn about all types of people?

Sure, a lot of us (me included) will say that we have friends that we agree with on some things, but disagree with on others. If you were to sit down with your friend and seriously map out your views on life, would this person have more things similar to your beliefs than not? Likely so. “Birds of a feather flock together”.

My own personal challenge (which you could take up if you want) is to take the advice of my professor and see how well a friendship goes without debates on abortion and god. I believe that a lot of people subconsciously (or consciously) push people away when they realise that they do not share the same views. Thus, I’m making a change in the way that I interact with people.