One Side of the Story

A few weeks back I stumbled upon a speech by an African Author, Chimamanda Adiche titled "The danger of single story". It is easily one of the best speeches I have ever heard. She explains how knowing just one side of the story is dangerous. She gives examples of how prejudiced people are when they think of Africans because of stories people have heard about Africa. She cites her own experience of how she thought Mexico was a wrecked nation based on the opinion she formed from things she heard in US and how surprised she was when she went there.

I have been a victim of such ill-formed opinions many times. I am sure all of us have been. An instantaneous example that comes to my mind is how I thought of America as a nation where everyone is reliant on machines for everything and dont do any physical work. But when I saw people cycling and jogging in Gainesville, I realized how wrong I had been. And once I visited Boulder, I realized I wasnt just wrong, I was stupid !

Interestingly, we humans also tend to see only one side of the story; our side of the story. We fail to see the other dimensions in the story. Every story has multiple dimensions. Everyone looks at things differently. But we humans, believe that what we see is the right way to see. No wonder, 'why dont you understand me ?!' is one of the most often used sentence on this earth. Guys, Half opened door is half closed too !

This incident happened very recently. One of my closest of friends had gone to a foreign nation for work-related stuff. She loves traveling. She was telling me that she is planning to go to this country, that country etc. I hit back saying that it means we wont keep in touch for few days. After some-time I started wondering. I love soccer and If I was Europe, I would have gone to Emirates Stadium, London at every possible opportunity to watch Arsenal. That's exactly what she was doing. She was doing what she loves. But being a dormant, reluctant traveler, I felt she was wasting her time. Till then.

Another interesting aspect is how often we try to convince others to accept our side of the story. We try to make them believe that what we do is better. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but not always. Take for example, music or food. Every person has a different taste. And everyone believes that they have the best taste for music/food and most of us try to convince others why our taste is better. We as humans, have a lot of ego, dont we ?

We form and create wrong opinions about people, places, things; look stupid because of ignorance; strain relations, hurt others feelings et al. All this because we fail to look beyond one side of the story; look beyond our side of the story.