Why so many different versions?
I was struck recently, while reading a book by Bréné Brown as she was referencing other books to make a variety of points, that many of the books I read do the same and sometimes even say the same things. Why are there so many books that are different and yet the same?
The same underlying message is expressed in different ways filtered by the various author’s and even our own experiences and beliefs. People don't hear a message the same way and thus the message is put out by many in many different ways in order to ensure the message is spread and absorbed, eventually, by many!
I embarked on a similar search for knowledge on religion 10 years ago as I sat on a plane headed for Kuwait, and then Afghanistan, reading “Islam for Dummies” in an attempt to understand the culture of the area I was headed to and what drove the intense division between the two factions.
The underlying message I found in Islam…#love!
Be a good person because….love!
Contribute to your community because…love!
Love was the background. That was not so different from my own Irish Catholic upbringing. So why is love not always what we see? Why do we see so much conflict?
I think one reason different religions struggle to relate to each other is because they have formed such a strict bond with their version, they refuse any other version immediately without taking the time to listen and understand.
The telling of a message via different voices and different styles is one way to find a solid path to greater understanding, appreciation, and #inclusion. If we listen we can more readily find the interwoven streams that allow us to relate with love.
Although issues of religion, and politics too, will probably always remain divisive, I think if we look closely there and in many of the other areas of life we can find that interwoven thread that binds the messages.
Even when I look back at the variety of business, education, and self-help style books I have read and the messages they try to portray, I have found an underlying theme of love even among the various recurring topic themes:
Love yourself and who you are and want to be.
Love your friends.
Trust in the love.
Approach sales with love for your customer.
Love = giving
When I more deeply analyze books of a similar category I find that each book takes a different tack. Part of my realization is that some books I feel I relate to very strongly while there are others that I struggle to fully appreciate. Similar to the religious aversion, there were just some representations of the message I refused immediately and did not want to read.
Therein lies our challenge!
If you are looking into supportive, informational, or educational materials, find different authors on the topic and find what resonates most with you! That will allow you to quickly absorb the topic and also show you where you may even have biases.
But then, also find the ones that don’t resonate with you and read them thoroughly and try to understand why they don’t. What is it about the message that you do not like? Is it the tone or the organization? Is it the examples they use? In doing this kind of review and analysis you expand your knowledge and situational awareness of perspectives not fully aligned with your own. This in turn makes you more self-aware. Growing your own self awareness of what you are attracted/ not attracted to subconsciously refines the tools you use to interact with people who are not like you. When you are exposed on a regular level to things that are different from you, whether it be as defined as a differing religion or as loose as just growing up in a different part of the world, your brain is less likely to resort to fight/flight protective and defensive tactics to engage. Instead you can be curious just as you have practiced above and are likely to approach those situations with a much more open and inclusive result.
I have always tried to be open in new interactions, my approach was to first try to listen and understand where the other person was starting from in order to best adapt my own interactive style. But that is not always possible, especially if I have been influenced by conscious or unconscious bias or even external factors. Recognizing for myself the things that are hard for me to relate to has helped me remain more open, less judgmental, and more successful in interacting with a wide variety of personalities! I don’t always come away with a win, but I do have a higher rate of positive outcomes in my interactions with others.
Doing what we can to learn about how we respond internally (easier with books when it is just us and no one observing or judging us) can help us in understanding and even controlling how we respond externally!
So absorb as much as you can about life and the things that interest you! Then use that #knowledge and #selfawareness to improve your ability to interact with the world in a more positive and inclusive way!
