Breaking Stereotypes.

I spent last week at Harvard University (no, I didn't get accepted or anything...I'd have to be crazy smart for that!) for a People to People Leadership Summit.  Honestly, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, especially because there would be people from all around the world there.  My crazy fear was that we wouldn't have anything in common or that they wouldn't be able to speak English (which is a stupid thought, now that I look back on it).

When I first arrived at the summit, I was overwhelmed by the different countries represented.  For the first time ever, I was in the minority.  After a while, I was assigned to my group which included 5 teenagers from Kenya, one from Brazil, one from South Korea, one from China, and four from the USA.  At this point, the cultural barriers I had set up in my head were beginning to break.

By the time, we had reached dinner that night, I realized that they weren't so different from me.  My motto began to be the same as the summit's: We are different.  We are the same.

Throughout the week, I learned so much about the world and made so many friends from different cultures.  A realization came upon me that our way of life is not the only way...people don't have to eat the things we do or speak English as a primary language for us to be friends.  By the end of the week, I had befriended people on five different continents.  And there were absolutely no barriers between us.

Stereotypes often keep us from reaching out to those in other nations.  I think we make up a number of excuses to keep us in our own little world, never allowing it to expand.  But what happened if we broke stereotypes?  If we allowed ourselves to befriend those that are a little different than us?

The truth is...we could change the world.