Fitting in

We learn in school that "human is a social animal." There is no doubt that humans are social animals indeed. We always want to be around some one. It can be our family, friends, relatives, special friend or just random social media connections. Even the introvert people have at least that one best friend or at least that one place where he/she wants to speak his/her heart out. It can be an imaginary or spiritual connection but it is hard to find a human who needs no connections at all. 

If we look around or look within ourselves, this fact is easy to confirm, Though, there is something more to this natural instinct as per my observations. We all tend to create our own social groups. One nice thing about this is, because of this tendency we have our families, but we want to go further and try and make more groups. We try to find stereotypes as per our comfort zones and create our own groups like our casts, religions, people speaking same languages, countries, states, males, females, able, disables and what not. 

Creating these groups have real good sides for sure. We can be around the people who share same interests, goals, aspirations etc. It definitely gives a sense of security. I can not imagine a world without certain support groups like support groups for families of soldiers or support groups for patients with cancers etc. It is really great to be with people who is going through the same pain or same struggles which you are going through. It is really nice to have some one by your side who exactly understands how you feel or who might even have a solution for your situation. 

But then comes the other side of this. We get so comfortable in our own "groups" that we forget to acknowledge the presence of some thing or some one different. In fact we become so self centered that we don't even want any one different to come close to us. We start perceiving such person as an intruder. This, at times goes to such an extent that we hear the sad stories like bullying, communal riots, exploitation and what not! 

Wouldn't it be nice if we learn to have a balance between being in a group and also embracing some thing beyond our comfort zone? If everything around us will be always as expected by us and similar to us wouldn't it be extremely boring? I really feel fortunate to be born in India and then for being in USA. In India if you just travel 50 miles from one place to other, you will see a huge change in language, culture, food styles etc. USA is a great melting pot. You get to meet people from different countries, different cultures on daily basis here. Being in these two places, I am fortunate enough to come across people with different cultures, languages, religious etc. I some times imagine that if I never had friends with such diverse backgrounds and if it was all from "same group" not only my life would have been boring but even my thoughts would have been very limited and narrow. 

The "group" mentality some times gets very harmful as well. People of majority, start troubling the people who have different stereotypes. At times, the people who do not have these stereotypes get so affected that they start perceiving  their differences as their drawback instead of their asset. In fact, there are so many examples in history which shows that  the people who were "different", who dared to think against stream has made huge difference in the world. The world needed their "originality" to be a better place.

I am very lucky to be able to work with persons with disabilities in a school system. People in education want all students to be able to access the same curriculum and achieve success. We are trying hard to work on our curriculum, teaching strategies, classroom environment etc. in such a way that the students with disabilities can access the curriculum in spite of their differences. It is hard for sure but it is wonderful. 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we try to work around our differences and still be together in the same way in daily life as well? It is true that the world is becoming very complicated and at times appears to be an unsafe place. But sticking to our comfort groups and still having an open mind for some one different can bring a great joy. It can create the dream world with safety boundaries and humans with open hearts!