Uniquely Exactly the Same

We had a great visit with our grandkids over Halloween.  I love that we get to spend that particular holiday with them because it is a memory making holiday.  It isn't overwhelmed with cooking or gifts or fireworks...it is a holiday of playing together. 

As I was editting the video clips, I was struck by both the similarities between these beautiful children and my own children at those ages.  That Ava had to knock the snowman over before she came in the house...the same way Michaela knocked one over right after they built it.  Just for the fun of destroying it.  That they love to pretend to be different animals...don't all children?  And play dress up.  And do puzzles and build things (only to knock them down) and dance! 

But yet, even as babies they are unique and individual.  It seems such a contradiction.  Each personality is so very different, what they like and don't like, what upsets them and what they enjoy, the foods they prefer and the colors they choose. 

I spent some time pondering this and thinking about how it affects our lives as adults and I came up with a few conclusions.  I believe in our needs we are all exactly the same.  We have the same physical needs, but we also have the same emotional needs (love, acceptance, security, purpose, fulfillment, and so on) and the same fears (rejection, death, illness, injury) and the same feelings (lonliness, fear, anger, excitement), but what makes us individual is how we go about meeting those needs, confronting our fears and reacting to those feelings.

I read Post Secret (www.postsecret.com).  The idea originated as a project where people anonymously sent in personal secrets to a person who published some of them.  It has resulted in multiple books, a web site and even a mobile app.  What strikes me about this whole phenomena isn't that people's deep dark secrets are terrible, but just the opposite; people's secrets are exactly the same.  They post about their lonliness and their fears and they are almost all the same.  Thousands of lonely people, thousands of people who are afraid they won't find love, thousands of people who hide their addictions, thousands of people who have been hurt by someone else.  The post secret community has become a warehouse for people who are hurting to not feel so alone in their pain.  They can see physical proof that they are not 'the only one' who feels that way.

I think that the world would be a much kinder place if everyone realized this simple fact.  We are all uniquely exactly the same. 

If we could appreciate that everyone on the street that we meet is struggling with the same fears and hurts that we are, perhaps we would be less inclined to flip them off when they accidentally cut us off in traffic.  Perhaps we would smile at people for no reason or say hi to people we pass on the street.  Maybe we could find some small joy in letting someone merge in traffic,waving them through a stop sign or letting them go ahead of us in line.  Maybe we wouldn't be so quick to blow the horn or cut in line ourselves.  Maybe we would be kinder.

Perhaps we would be able to see beyond skin color, religion, language, and body shape to find amazement in our real differences and solace in our sameness.  Because our real differences are not a physical thing, our real differences are in the unique ways we address our identical world and our identical needs, feelings, fears and emotions.