#1442 - open up
Mark Twain once said that "travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."
Indeed, in the last decades spent travelling and living abroad, my mind has expanded, and I have shattered many beliefs and assumptions about reality. Being in contact with other people and their perspectives has changed me significantly.
However, it also allowed me to learn a lot about myself. It made me more aware of my roots, story and, ultimately, identity.
The more I learn about the world, the more I know about myself.
In his book Humankind, Rutger Bregman cites a 1999 study on the Effects of Group Membership Salience. The researchers found that "prejudices can be eliminated only if we retain our own identity."
So, it is a clear win-win for me.
The more we get in contact with the diversity of the world, the more we get rid of our prejudices and get more clarity about our identity.
Instead, we often close up and refuse to connect with whomever we feel diverse for fear of losing our identity, without realising that we are weakening the same thing we want to protect.
Identity is not something to protect but to nurture and strengthen by engaging with diversity in all its forms.