Different wavelengths

I have said this many times before and heard this even more times. You bond better with people of the same "wavelength". The saying "Birds of the same feather flock together" attests to that. Now that I have grown in age and hopefully wisdom, I don't any longer subscribe to this.

The idea behind the thinking was that if the wavelengths did not match, then this would result in conflicts and aggravate the relationship which will gradually dwindle. An open mind, mutual respect and conflict resolution skills can make relationships work even if priorities are different. If you are averse to conflicts, then you naturally stand to lose a lot more than just the relationship.

It takes all kinds of people to make this world. People's behavior is dictated by their priorities in life. No two people are created alike and we all have our differences. What makes most of us live in harmony, despite these differences is the tolerance of each other's priorities. In fact at a macro level, I'll go further to say that there are more advantages in diversity. Think of a world where everybody ate only spinach, where everybody went hang gliding or everybody in the city sauntered in the park, or everybody in town went to the hair salon on Saturday afternoons. There will be a severe resource crunch. Different priorities drive the economy if you compare the priorities of savers versus that of borrowers. One person's treasure is another person's trash.

Personally, I am averse to confrontation and conflicts, this makes my conversation with other "wavelengths" superficial at best. I can have meaningful and deep dialogues with only people that I know are open enough to receive my words. If I could overcome this inherent nature in some way, I can connect with more number of people. I might even meet more "open" and "tolerant" people. Well, I may even have the capability to open up people's monds that were formerly closed!