Classifying Each Other

Last week I attended a Wine & Tea Girls event and had a really great time. Wine & Tea Girls is a diverse group of ladies of all ages. Everyone is interested in living a healthy life and in learning about the health benefits of wine & tea. What a great premise! It’s also a perk that the organizer is an event planner, so you know they have some really great events!

One of the interesting things I noticed about the event I attended was that I was 15-20 years older than the oldest ladies attending that evening. It could have been awkward, but it wasn’t at all. Everyone mingled with each other, and there were so many different fun topics to pursue.

That observation of age had me thinking about the kind of categories we use when we are classifying each other:

• Age
• Gender
• Sexual orientation
• Ethnicity
• Race
• Skin color
• Religion
• Education
• Class
• Political party
• Occupation
• IQ
• Height
• Weight

There are many more, but you get the idea. I think we all tend to look for common ground, especially when we first meet people. Consider what happens, though, when we take it a little further.

We have all heard (or said!), “Men always…” or “Democrats always…,” etc. The only true thing about those kinds of statements is:

They are always untrue.

And actually, that’s one of the very best things about life! Each of us is a unique individual, and we each follow our own unique path. Individually, we are rarely always…anything. So, a group of us can’t possibly always be…anything.

Why are we categorizing people and looking for commonalities that lead us to discuss the same familiar things? There are so many new things we can learn from each other.

Let’s keep our minds and hearts open as we listen to each other. And then, we’ll be able to learn some wonderful, new and interesting things!

(Photo credit: tarotreadingsbyjeannie.com)