We Are All The Same

Hi guys, my name is Donnie Rouse and you are listening to the podcast One Life. We are all the same. Albert Einstein said, peace can't be kept by force. It could only be kept by understanding. With the elections coming up in no more than about three months, I thought that this would be a very, very timely and very important episode to put out there. Because I wanted to remind people that when we feel separation, we suffer, but when we understand the other person, it creates unity. In one of my trips, I was in Dubai. I had a long layover. And during that layover I decided that I was going to leave the airport. I think the layover was something like nine hours. As I was leaving the airport, I was on this little motorized kind of walkway going by and I looked up and I saw this advertisement for rooms in the Burj Khalifa, which is like the most amazing building I've ever seen in my life. And in this picture there was an Arab man wearing the traditional garments, kneeling down and hugging his two children. Looks like he had just come home from work and his wife was kind of sitting there in the background looking at him as he hugged them. As I looked at this picture, I thought to myself, I'm like, man, first of all, it was such a beautiful photo. And then secondly, I said that picture, there could be anybody that could be my father hugging us when he came home from work. And then it made me think about the values that we all have. And we want the same thing in life, but we just kind of go about a different way of getting it. We have the same needs, but go around a different way of fulfilling those needs. A similar interaction I had in Karabi Town. So prior to some of these trips, I had very little interaction with people of the Muslim faith. When I was in Krabi Down I was actually the hostel I was staying at was across the street from a mosque. So I don't even know what time it was. I think call to prayer was like at 5 o' clock in the morning. So every morning I was waking up at around 5 and at first it seemed kind of like off to me just because I wasn't used to it. And there was this little eatery that was just outside of my hostel that I never ventured into again. It was all the language in Arabic and there was a Muslim man who was the proprietor. I just never thought about going in there because I didn't feel comfortable. Fast forward. So as I spent a couple days there, I rented a scooter and I went out into this non touristic part of Krabi with one of my friends, my friend Chris from Australia. And we were standing there, we started to. We pulled over to get a snack at a shop owner. It was a Muslim couple who owned the shop. And when I sat there, I noticed that, first of all, the facial gesture of the mother, the husband and wife who owned the place. They just looked like exuding kindness. They had these beautiful expressions. They were just so nice people. They went out of their way to make sure that we had any, like, anything. They couldn't even understand what we were saying, but they went the extra mile to make sure that they could, you know, that we had everything we needed. It was just a great experience overall. So that experience first opened my eyes again to say, wow, people are people. And we have these beliefs without knowing anything about it. We have these. We project these beliefs onto people. And as a result of that, that's kind of what we get back. Unless we have something to shake up that belief system, to disrupt it. And as a result of the travels, that was the disruption. When I went back to the hostel, like my last day, nothing was open. I was flying out early in the morning. Nothing was open except this eatery right next to my hostel. Hungry as hell. I was like, you know what? Screw it. Let me just go in there. Actually, I think I might have eaten there two days. I might have eaten there the day before as well, if my memory serves me correct. And I ended up getting like this mango sticky. Mango coconut sticky rice. It was freaking so good. You could probably like, I could taste it as I'm describing it to you. And I had this noodle dish at like early, early morning. It was so good. And the proprietor came out and he said to me, he's like, hey. He's like, thank you for coming in. Tell all your friends about this place when they come to visit Krabi. I end up taking a photo of them. But when I returned back when I was flying out of Krabi, I would just think to myself, what an amazing experience. I had these preconceived notions about what people of Islamic faith were like. And that belief system was shattered by an experience I've had. And I'm giving. This is kind of more the. One of the more extreme. And I'll give you two more examples. I was in Japan. I was in. I think it was called Naishima. I think Nishimaoshima. I don't remember the two places. But anyways, I was on this island called Devil's Comb, or it was Island. There's a devil's comb. Because this phenomenon that happens in the rocks. So imagine you have this little peninsula going out, and then from the peninsula, imagine like rays of light from a light bulb kind of like going outward. There was these rocks that looked like they had. Someone had taken a giant comb and just, like, comb the rocks. And it was. They don't. They said it's a natural phenomenon. It's pretty amazing. I don't know how it happened or. But it was impressive. So I was sitting there. I befriended a guy from England, and we were sitting there on the beach with no one else around, and we're just talking, we're sharing about our experiences back home, the challenges we had, which is one of the awesome things that happens when you travel is that you might meet someone for, like, an hour, and all of a sudden you're going, like, deep. You're going really, really deep. And that deepness that you go into creates this deep, deep friendship. So he was telling me about his life back home, you know, about drugs and stuff that he'd experimented with. And it was some crazy. And prior to. It's funny, like, back here, back in the United States, if someone were telling me that, I probably wouldn't associate with him. Like, I'd probably have. There'd probably be some judgment going on. But it was different here. So he's telling me all these things, and there was no judgment at all. Instead, there was understanding. There's empathy. I understood where his struggles were going. I understood, and I was able to relate in my own life, although my experiences were different. And to this day, we remain really, really good friends. Another story for you. My friend Paddy. Paddy is an Irish guy with locks of hair. He looks like Samson from the Bible. And he is. He lives in Spain. He's from Ireland, but lives in Granada, Spain. And he's a mutual friend of. He has. We have a mutual friend in common. When he met me, he was like, I thought all Americans were freaking idiots. He's like, but then I met you, and I thought you were pretty cool. I was like, all right, thanks, I think. But, I mean, I took it as a compliment because I understood where he was coming from. I understood that we have these biases when we're judging other people. There's a separation. And a lot of time we don't. We can't see the truth. We can't see the writing on the wall because we're too busy judging. And that judging is what causes the separation. I feel separate from you because I have this preconceived notion of who you are and what you're about when it's completely false. And when he told me that, like, he saw the commonality in me, especially since we had a friend in common, I'm sure that helped as well. But he saw, you know, like, wow, I made this judgment on a group of people, probably based on a handful of interactions he had. When, you know you have one, all it needs, all you need is one interaction to break that stereotype. And the reason I bring this up, because all of these experiences that I've had in the travels have taught me one thing, to approach everything with just understanding and curiosity. Because when I was. And that's how I live, like, when I travel, that's how I meet people. And I have these really, really deep friendships because I approach it from looking to understand, looking for commonality rather than division. Today, everyone, like, you know, oh, hi. What's your name? Oh, Donnie. What's your name? Oh, I'm John. Oh, what political party? You know, people. It's almost like people are looking to divide, you know, and it's. When I travel, it's the exact opposite. I'm looking to unite. I'm looking for some commonality, some bond that I could share with the person. So this way I can make these experiences that much more enjoyable, and there's unity. So how can we apply that to the upcoming election? I hope I, like, kind of sewed this all together perfectly. We going back to, like, the Islamic thing is that, like, you know, mentally, like, I mentally, I understood that, you know, there. There is no difference between, like, you know, like, my religion, their religion, whatever. You know what I mean? Like, we are all the same. But yet, through social conditioning, being in the United States, hearing stuff on tv, I had this record going in the background of my mind. And that is so important for you to recognize that, because intellectually, you might say, oh, you know what? I think that everybody's equal. I don't judge anybody. But then when you're in a circumstance or in a situation, this little voice in your head starts kicking off and he starts talking. And all of a sudden now you're taking divisive action or these stereotypes come out. So it takes being conscious, and sometimes those thoughts aren't even yours. You could have just heard something over and over and over again, and literally it's just implanted in your head. And as a result of, like, having this thing that you don't even believe in, all sudden now you're believing just because you've heard it over and over. That's all a belief is. It's just repetition going over and over in your head. So again, I'm going off point, but just be mindful of what you take in. Going back to this coming election cycle, we are all the same. I mean, we all want the same thing, right? We all want to be happy, we all want to be safe. We all want to be able to take care of our families. The only difference in it all is that we just have different opinions of how to reach that. But if you look at the underlying fabric of it all, you could appreciate and you could understand someone's belief system and their perception of the world. And then when you understand that, then you can maybe even question it and say, well, why do you believe this? And who knows, maybe your beliefs will change or maybe their beliefs will change. But it all comes with first understanding when respecting someone's point of view rather than rushing into judgment. With that said, I guess what I want to leave off with is in the coming months, I mean, I know crap is gonna pick up. And last election cycle, it was a very, very divisive moment in American history, A very sad moment in American history. And I want to do everything in my power to make sure that that doesn't happen again. But also for your well being. Because anytime you have something like that that takes you out of that moment, that causes suffering inside, it doesn't serve you. I had heard this quote that they said that five minutes of anger is enough to shut down your immune system for five hours. Think about that for a second. Especially since all this, like Covid thing is going on, right? The last thing you want to do is shut your immune system down for five hours. And that's just like the physical aspect of anger. But when you're angry, I mean, you're the one who suffers. It's like the quote from Buddha says, when you hold on to anger, it's like holding on a hot coal, wanting to throw it at someone else. It's you who get burned. So, I mean, that is it. I guess if I want to leave you with one message is just to look for the commonality. Look to understand rather than judge and see that. Look for the similarities, look for what unites the two. Like you and whoever else you're gonna have a conversation with. I mean, it could probably be your relative and, you know, there's some commonality there. You know, there's stuff that unites us. Just put your focus there, Put your focus there. You know, remember all the reasons why you love the person if it's someone close. If it's not, if it's a complete stranger, look to a higher power. Look to a higher image of yourself. How do you want to act? If you put that intention out there first? When the interaction comes, you probably won't be as triggered because you'll know what the response is that you want for yourself. You know how you want to act. You know how that higher self would act. That is it. Guys, I hope this helps or hope this sheds a little bit of light. Just gives you a reframe about differences between one another as well as just like the framework to look to understand that is it. Have a beautiful rest of your day. It is nighttime now for me. I wasn't planning on doing this, but I just kind of got the inspiration so I clicked on the switch and started recording. If you enjoyed this, please share it with your family, friends, take a screenshot, post it to your social media, give me a review on Apple podcasts or maybe even on Spotify, whatever one you listen to, and together we could all make this world an awesome place. I believe that life is meant to be lived. This is your one life and it is a hell of a lot better when you're sharing it with other people. God bless you and I will see you next week.