While growing up one of your parent’s many jobs was to teach you lessons that would stay with you for the remainder of your life. Right from wrong, how to say thank you and the importance of giving rather than taking. The list of lessons learned is nearly endless and you may not have even realized that you were learning them. One lesson that always stood out to me is that there is good and bad in all kinds. This lesson could not be more prevalent today while our society is pointing fingers at those that are a certain race, gender or sexuality.

My mom taught me this lesson when I was only in first grade and I still and always will vividly remember its entirety. Although I was young, she did her very best to explain to me the importance of understanding that what a person looked like, where they came from or what they loved did not make them either good or bad. Her purpose in telling me this at such a young age was to teach me how to make friends rather than judgments.

I was so little and she could tell I did not fully understand so she decided to draw me a little picture. She took a napkin and a pen and began to draw a circle with two smaller circles inside. It was her attempt at a Yin-Zang symbol. She explained that there is a little bite of good and bad in all kinds, that was why there was a small circle on each big half of the overall circle. Her drawing was nothing elaborate but it got its point across.

When you are a child all you want is an abundance friends but basing them off of what you see or know about them is not a fair testimony of who they truly are. We are often drawn to people who look similar to us perhaps by the clothes that they wear however who’s to say that’s what makes them a good person?It sounds silly, right? To think we would decide if a person was good or bad based on what they wear.. But why is it not funny when we base someone on the color of their skin, where they come from and who or what they love?

Our world is diverse and we are lucky to not live among a population where we all beat to the same drum. Our differences make us beautiful and our flaws make us real but in order to accept that we need to stop making judgements on each other.

What my mom wanted me to take from this lesson was that you need to know a person prior to concluding if they are good or bad. You can have as many friends as you would like or as few as you would prefer, either way make sure you make friends with your heart rather than with stereotypes.