Whenever I hear the word ‘peace’, I think of coexistence. In my perfect world, all humans are able to live in harmony with respect for one another, despite differing ethnicities, religions, sexualities, genders and races. Today’s political climate has pushed that achievable vision into the realm of impossibility, but I continue to have hope.
I love being a student at UNC-Chapel Hill for many reasons, one being the amount of diversity present. Two students in my first-year seminar are from China. My RA is from Guatemala. There is a large number of Indian students in my English class. College is the best time to get out of your comfort zone because you’re surrounded by diversity and such a vast mixture of distinctive people. The only way you will grow as a person is if you engage and form relationships with people different from you. Conversation fosters understanding and is the key to a peaceful world. How often do you see enemies sitting down with one another and trying to see things from the other’s point of view? Surrounding yourself with people who have conflicting opinions and views will only broaden your perspectives. It will frustrate you and potentially cause some problems, but the only way to get rid of prominent social issues such as sexism, racism and homophobia is by showing people another way of looking at things, which can go both ways.
Understanding someone also goes hand in hand with acceptance. Coexistence only works if we accept others for who they are without trying to change them into who we think they should be. You might not agree with who someone is or the path their life is on, but that isn’t an excuse to tear them down and make them feel bad.
We could all stand to be a little bit more compassionate and understanding towards others, regardless of labels and stigma regarding socio-economic status or level of education obtained. In the end, we are all humans deserving of equal rights and opportunities. I’m going to end this with a quote I learned back in elementary school, that no one is too old to hear again: “Treat others the way you want to be treated.”