With our common humanity

Once there was a friend who made a comment: In the Boston Chinese society, there are hundreds of social groups. Unfortunately, very few of them survive for more than three years. I am not sure if this is a correct observation. But that really raised some serious concerns.

 

There are many nonprofit social organizations with the strong ability to conjugate people together to achieve their common goals. Their existence not only served their members, but benefited the whole community. But why do some of those social groups have to dissolve? There are many volunteers who devoted their whole heart and contributed endless hours to serve their organization. They have earned a lot of respect. They are valuable to society. But why do some of them have to leave the group once they were actively involved?

 

They are some important questions that need to be addressed. Based on my understanding, one of the common issues tied onto these questions is the relationships between people.

 

In any group with any decision, there are always some people unsatisfied. This is natural. There are many talented people out there with millions of unique ideas. Disagreement among them is inevitable.

 

Since problems are not avoidable, we would be better off to face it and to try to find the solutions. Finding the appropriate medical treatment is the first step to occur one’s illness. The right solution for problem solving is the necessary step to keep a group healthy and strong. To openly discuss the problems could be helpful. It is like a woodpecker pecking a sick tree to find the worms. However many people choose to avoid facing the problems. Chinese people are especially passive and shy. They often leave the problems unsolved, and hope the problems will be gone with time. Sometimes, with the problems in the way, relationships get worse, and misunderstanding adds on. The problems become bigger and deeper. At one point, the eruption of feelings burns down the vulnerable human ties…

 

Under a same organization with a common goal, we should allow friends and colleagues to have different views, to let them take different approaches, as long as people have a good will to serve the community. The mistakes we should not have are focusing on one particular method, holding onto one’s own opinion and never to step back, and not tolerating others’ differences.

 

President Clinton has addressed to Harvard class 2007; and he said: “Now we have in America 1,010,000 non-governmental groups. Not counting 355,000 religious groups, most of them are involved in some sort of work to help other people… I will say to all of you, there is no challenge we face, no barrier to having your grandchildren here on this beautiful site 50 years from now, more profound than the ideological and emotional divide which continues to demean our common life and undermine our ability to solve our common problems. When the human genome was sequenced, the most interesting thing to me was the discovery that human beings with their three billion genomes (nucleotides) are 99.9 percent identical genetically... I got tickled the other night. I wound up in a restaurant in New York with a bunch of friends of mine. And I looked over and two tables away, and there was Rush Limbaugh [laughter], who’s said a few mad things about me. So I went up and shook hands with him and said hello and met his dinner guest. And I came just that close to telling him we were 99.9 percent the same… What we have in common is more important than what divides us.”

 

Inspirited by Mr. Clinton’s speech, I’d like to say that: We, the human been are 99.9% in common, regardless of our color, our height and weight. Our common humanity is more important than anything else. We should be able to compromise the 0.1% of our difference. Even we may not like someone that much, or we may disagree with someone on certain issue, but we still should try to maintain a workable relationship with him or her to achieve the common goals.

 

With our common humanity, we should be able bound on tight with a common interest, pool in our talent and resource, to have fun together, and to serve the community together.