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Take a one day break to educate yourself

I believe it would make the world a better place.
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Take a one day break to educate yourself

I think I have an answer, or at least it’s what I believe can help. We know racism exists today, but we also know the answer, because we live the anti-racism every day, and I say this because in the animal kingdom we are the only species that discriminates based on color. We don’t look at a dog thats black, white, or striped and say hmm. No, we celebrate its differences; cats the same, cows? Brown, white, same story, we celebrate the differences.

And in our society we have a bad habit of if “we don’t understand something”, we quickly dismiss it, rather than educate ourselves on why it’s different and celebrate it being different rather than be angry with it. I often ask myself “if the whole world believed and acted the same way I do, it would be incredibly boring.

So my answer is, next time you see something you don’t understand or know about, take a one day break to educate yourself on the specific event, then once you do, you don’t have to agree all the time, but maybe next time celebrate that difference rather than be indifferent to it.

A good friend of mine doesn’t eat pork because of his religious beliefs. As I’m stuffing my face with bacon, I spend the day educating myself on why he doesn’t, and it was a fascinating read into his religion, and I respect him that much more for his beliefs and sticking to them. Now he doesn’t go around bragging about it, but he believes. And when I’m around him I respect it and celebrate how we are different. I don’t dwell on why we are different.

I look at myself as a small but starting point for this discussion. If you saw me walking down the street you probably would think of a normal, average guy. You wouldn’t give me a second glance. But if I told you that I was going home to chew on a marijuanna gummy? Would you look at me differently? If I told you I was going home to meditate, would you look at me differently? If I told you I had just come off of a 48 hour fast of not eating anything but water, would you look at me differently? Or if I said I was going home to do some breath holding work with an ice bath, would you look at me differently?

You probably would, even my own doctor does when I tell him, but next time if I told you that all of the above were literally the latest and greatest in modern science that is at the leading edge of longevity and keeping us alive and healthy, would you now look at me differently? Maybe ask me a question or two? Maybe and hopefully, but if you did the “one day of educating” yourself, now you’d have a greater appreciation of what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, you may even try some of it yourself.

But it comes down to the fact that we don’t understand it, and we should take a 24-hour break and try to understand and educate ourselves. Then once we do, we don’t have to agree all the time, but just agree that different is good, different is healthy, not bad or unhealthy. So the next time you look at a rose, and you see a pink one, or a red one, or a yellow one, stop, smell the roses and celebrate the colour differences, or the next time you look up at a giant tree, whether it be a pine tree, or a Garry oak tree, stop and appreciate why it’s different, and how it being different truly makes my life better, not worse and be thankful for that difference.

I think the practice of a “one day break to end racism” would go a long way in stopping people from making irrational decisions based on something they don’t understand, and I believe it would make the world a better place.

Jason Adelborg

Duncan