Differences

Right now the only deference between you and I is that at this hour,22:42 in a village in Mbale, right below the Elgon Mountain, I have sat down to write this article. But that is what life is all about, differences. Today and at this very hour, there are many differences being created. A student, writing their last exam, a young woman making up her mind on who of the suitors to spend all her life with, a baby determining that she needs to cry, a husband deciding to confess to his wife of an adulterous affair and those many other differences that are being created.
When we stand in the crowds of the day, we easily isolate ourselves from the rest, from all that is going on around us. We identify ourselves by what we are not as observed from those around us. We have a small voice that helps us know by what is absent in us but present in those around us. But when we are alone, we see clearly, we are not a measure of what we are not but of who we really are. We are the person laying in that bed, seated at the computer reading this article, we are who we really are regardless of what is around us.

I have found that it is many times very difficult to isolate ourselves from the crowd and the comparisons that it presents to us. In that realization I have grown to know that we only make those comparisons, not because we know ourselves or the people we compare ourselves against, better, but because we are trying to understand ourselves. We are searching for ourselves in those around us, in what is and what is not in them. We are in the process of processing us. The journey can sometimes be very depressing until we truly get to know as we should.

But there are times when that comparison is in fact an attraction to something we believe ourselves to be. There are times when in those around us we see ourselves, a fraction of us that may be hidden or unattended to and we seek to associate with them with the hope that we shall express or experience ourselves in the abilities that they present before us. We are indeed drawn to ourselves and we want to tell ourselves about ourselves but we only use them as a means of doing this and we are wrong, because all that they will ever tell us about is themselves.
I have learnt that people are constantly in the process of telling us about themselves. The way we talk, what we talk about, how and with whom we talk about it, the way we walk, eat, and laugh and all those other human activities are ways of talking about us. In them we shall see the differences among us; we shall learn that in our differences, none becomes better than the other, but simply different. When a man tells his wife that he loves her, when he happily carries their daughter, when he yells at her, he is telling her about himself. When we think to ourselves, those thoughts that only we know, we are telling ourselves something about ourselves. Even the thoughts of anger against someone, or love or hatred, we are simply telling the rest about ourselves.

That’s why it’s very important for us to be quick to listen and slow to respond. Because not many conversations have the motives of the speakers open for all to view, only when we listen and consider the matters presented do we clearly get understanding of what was being communicated. Greater than understanding the main points and communicating them, is the need to clearly get the motives passing in those points. When we listen to people searchingly, with undivided attention and not just the waiting for them to stop talking so that we can join in, we shall be better people.

But this starts when we realize that other people are also very important and not just us and our opinions. I have noticed that many times we are only listening to ourselves and not the other person. It’s a form of disrespect that we exhibit and we don’t even realize it because we are so absorbed in ourselves.

Back to the differences being created. We are not only in the process of creating differences among us and other people, but also in our very lives. We should seek to make a difference in our individual lives by purposing to be better each day. And I have seen how easy this can be when we look at the lives that we meet and realize that more important than getting the difference and the similarity, is getting the lessons that are so rich in them. That will very well happen when we set our heart to value people and be consistent in this commitment. Then and only then shall we learn to make the most important difference, the difference that we make in our lives.
And this is simply what it should lead to, the ability to think through the other person and use what we understand and well in making the relationship we have with them better.