The Grey Area

It seems like these days the world is split on so many different topics that everything becomes either left or right, up or down, black or white, right or wrong, and so on. But what if there is more to it than just seeing all things as only one way or another? What if there is actually more of a grey area than we want to acknowledge?

With respect to current events especially, people are very passionate about their positions. So passionate, in fact, that they often do not want to even consider any perspectives that might lie outside of their firmly-held beliefs. As a result, there has been a lot of judgment being thrown around, and accusations that if you agree with one particular point that it must also mean that you subscribe to the entire movement. But multiple perspectives can be true at the same time.

The problem is that too many of us are all too quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We hear a few good points, but then something else is said that throws us off and we dismiss the entire argument altogether. But does this actually serve us?

Perhaps it might be better if we start reading between the lines a little bit more and realize that we can agree with parts of one argument while also agreeing with parts of another. Could it be, then, that a happy medium does indeed exist?

It's easy to get caught up in wanting to be right. It's also easy to get caught up in having very strong opinions. But trying to listen to the other side, consider other viewpoints with compassion, and hear people out without judgment might, in fact, be a more uniting approach.

We all need to realize that the truth can change and that the truth is open for interpretation. In fact, we can all be right and we can all be wrong from different perspectives all at the same time. So it's not really about judging "right" versus "wrong," because that game is futile. Instead, it becomes a joint effort to figure out as closely as we can what is actually going on and why. Then we can come together to bring about the solutions that we seek, rather than wasting time on arguments that divide us.