The Importance of Remembering Our Common Humanity

Dealing With Differences With Empathy and Compassion.

Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels.

“People can and often do ignore or deny their common humanity with others, or deny, at least implicitly, that their common humanity commits them to sympathy or compassion for those less advantaged than themselves. ” — David Smail

We all want to be happy and loved. We all have wants, needs, desires, and fears. We all want to avoid suffering. This is something that we have in common, no matter what our differences may be.

At any given moment, we can be pulled in two directions — towards ourselves and the groups to which we belong. When these two roles conflict, it can be easy to lose sight of our commonalities and focus on our differences.

However, it’s important to remember that we are all human beings.

We all want the same things — or at least most of us.

We can approach difficult conversations with openness and understanding by keeping this in mind.