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I thought I would start this post by asking a question that sound’s simple but actually is quite complex to answer.
To be honest, I actually cannot think of a good answer that justifies why we can’t just all get along. Wouldn’t the world be a great place to live if we all got along? So, if we all agree the world would be a better place if we all get along, then the question remains as to why we don’t?
When I was in my final year of university, there was a guy who was generally not well liked because he was arrogant and competitive and wanted to finish the year with the highest score for Honours. That meant he would have the prestigious prize of having his name in gold on the board that adorned the entrance of our building. A group of us agreed that it didn’t matter which one of us beat him but one of us had to in order to make sure his name wasn’t on the board! As a result, we all worked harder and in the end he didn’t have his name up on the board by the end of the year.
Maybe not getting along with others helps us preform better because this becomes a stimulus to motivate us? In the example above, we had a ‘common enemy’ and this drove us to work harder and achieve more. Is having someone we don’t get along with important for us as individuals to excel at what we do?
We have had a few heated debates in my family over the years that are centred around beliefs. These often end up with us agreeing to disagree! Thankfully, because we are family we still stay together despite these differences in beliefs (although it can lead to some uncomfortable silences from time to time).
That said, having different beliefs can be a strong reason why we don’t get along. Sometimes beliefs are so fundamentally different that it leads to isolation, prejudice, xenophobia, violence and even war.
I remember this exercise we did at school where we were broken into groups and asked to workshop the most important things to ourselves. The teacher was surprised when our group reported back because we were the only group that had actually come to agreement. The purpose of the exercise was to show that what was important to ourselves couldn’t be agreed in a group because everyone has different things that are important to them. Of course our group was given some stick by the other groups for failing the exercise! Then again did we really fail as we were willing to compromise on what was important to ourselves in order to get along?
It’s important to have beliefs but coming back to the original question, are our beliefs that important to us that they should be more important than getting along?
I’ve given two examples of why we all can’t just get along but I come back to my original dilemma that I don’t think either of these examples are a good justification. Is there really a justification for us not getting along? Then why can’t we all just get along?
