Grab a coffee, I did it again. Small World When I was very young, fellow students would talk about going on vacation to Italy, France, Bahamas, and so on. After locating these places up on the globe, I noticed that it was almost traveling half way around the world. It amazed me at the complexity of world travel with not only the amount of time flying over the ocean, but also the difficulty with the language barrier. Depending on which direction the traveler had to go, the time and day changes would affect eating and sleeping habits too. I wondered how people returned from these trips looking and acting the same. As I aged and became a little more educated about travel and made a couple of trips to the East Coast, I learned that the secret is to anticipate the differences between locations. I met many people from foreign lands and the stumbled through not only languages, but also customs and traditions. Some I excelled at and others I fell on my face with embarrassment, but such is life. The company went through many changes with new acquisitions, and required training our sales forces in England, France, Germany, South Africa, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, and Canada on the products we manufactured in the US and vise versa. My boss informed me that it was going to entail a great amount of travel, of which I was to be a part. My mind started to reel, passports, shots, airports, airplanes, coach class, business class, money exchange rates, expense reports, time away from family, time change, phone calls, hotel after hotel after hotel, endless customs lines, inspections, language, etc. If I recall there was a moment of anxiety, hyperventilation, and slight case of nausea. This started my experience with traveling and seeing that the world was not that large as originally thought when younger. I determined that no matter where I went or with whom I met, we are all the same with minor differences. Of the thousands of people I met, worked with, talked to, observed, taught, enjoyed meals with, and even met their families, the one thing that was the absolute same no matter where I was, they have a passion to love life and love one another. Outside of the obvious differences of color, eye shape, language, and customs, we are the same. It was a lesson when I was the one being different on the outside. Think about this the next time we encounter someone who is different, overlook that, and pay attention to what is inside and compare that to ourselves. There is no difference. If we all did this, there may be fewer conflicts in this world.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:04:37 +0000
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