Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Friends, Tolerance, Respect, Acceptance, Compassion
Friends, Tolerance, Respect, Acceptance, Compassion
I recently had a somewhat heated but civil debate with a friend of mine about whether the local economy depends to a large part on tourism. The reason the debate was a little heated is that none of my friends are wimps, the reason that it was still civil is all my friends believe that good people can have differing viewpoints – this is a concept that often gets lost when debates turn ugly. Nevertheless, despite what some people tell you you don’t have to pick sides and every debate doesn’t have to cost you friends. In fact, I would not be comfortable having a friend that could not argue with me. The trick of developing real friends is knowing that at times you will argue, disagree and for awhile may even be angry at each other – good friendships survive all of this and become stronger because you value their input knowing that it will be real. Sometimes friends (as well as lovers) have to just agree to disagree. This involves people with a high level of tolerance and who accept the fact that we are by our nature likely to perceive the same things differently and that consequently our viewpoints being different we will naturally disagree. Would we really want to live in a world where we saw everything the same? Where we all lived exactly the same and thought the same and there was nothing new or different. Yuck, just the thought of all that conformity makes me shudder.
I recently had a somewhat heated but civil debate with a friend of mine about whether the local economy depends to a large part on tourism. The reason the debate was a little heated is that none of my friends are wimps, the reason that it was still civil is all my friends believe that good people can have differing viewpoints – this is a concept that often gets lost when debates turn ugly. Nevertheless, despite what some people tell you you don’t have to pick sides and every debate doesn’t have to cost you friends. In fact, I would not be comfortable having a friend that could not argue with me. The trick of developing real friends is knowing that at times you will argue, disagree and for awhile may even be angry at each other – good friendships survive all of this and become stronger because you value their input knowing that it will be real. Sometimes friends (as well as lovers) have to just agree to disagree. This involves people with a high level of tolerance and who accept the fact that we are by our nature likely to perceive the same things differently and that consequently our viewpoints being different we will naturally disagree. Would we really want to live in a world where we saw everything the same? Where we all lived exactly the same and thought the same and there was nothing new or different. Yuck, just the thought of all that conformity makes me shudder.
