I tripped over an assumption the other day and fell flat on my face. Ouch! The topic doesn't matter; what does matter is that I'd spent most of my 60-odd years thinking that everyone felt the same way about it. Wow, was I wrong.
Letter of the Day (May 11): Diversity of experience
Diversity of experience leads to diversity of thought and helps us find our way.
May 9, 2014 at 11:52PM
The deal is, if we spend all of our time with people who are like us, we never see the different points of view that come from different backgrounds, different experiences and different ethnicities. We come to believe that there is really only one way to look at things, and we view other opinions with suspicion. We become entrenched in our own opinions, thinking that those "other people" must just be wrong. Or stupid. Or threatening. If we're wrong about that one thing, what else might we be wrong about?
Embracing diversity sounds like a silly liberal idea until you realize that each of us can't possibly own the One and Only Truth. Maybe — just maybe — we each own a piece of it, and cannot put together the jigsaw puzzle of life without all of those other pieces.
Deb Jensen, Maple Grove
