You Might As Well Be In Ittoqqortoormiit

If I could pass on one message from my long life, it's this:

NOT EVERYONE IS LIKE YOU!

 
You like lemons? You eat lemons all day long? Go for it! But please do not assume lemons are the only fruit worth eating, and--especially--don't assume the rest of us SHOULD eat only lemons.

We live in a diverse world and we have access to the most remote locations on earth--want to go to Tristan da Cunha? Mutuo? Oymyakon? Kerguelen Islands? Ittoqqortoormiit? Just Google it.

While there, you surely won't expect everyone there to look like you, talk like you, eat the same foods you do, have the same interests, dreams, perspectives, or behaviors you do. Well, bring that same perspective home:

Every place you go, every group you join, 

every team you're on at work or play,

every family gathering,

you might as well be in Ittoqqortoormiit
(pronounced "It-oh-kwa-kwaor-tow-mEEt")!

Which also means that your way of doing things is not necessarily the best way in a given situation, and certainly not the only way. EVER!

There are countless personality models, organized descriptions of human characteristics--cognitions, emotions, motivations, behaviors, self-perceptions, values, attitudes--that describe the differences among us. I happen to prefer the Enneagram. You may find the MBTI more useful, or Tilt365, The Leadership Circle, The Big Five or one of many others.

But please, please, in your everyday interactions, keep in mind the implications of acknowledging our differences, as described by "Allison" in my book with C.J. Fitzsimons  (Somebody? Nobody? The Enneagram, Mindfulness and Life's Unfolding, p. 5):

"I'd assumed everybody thought the way I did and was aware of right and wrong, that people couldn't be good if they didn't do what was clearly right. It never occurred to me that others might have a different focus of attention than I do. That opened up the question, If I could be so mistaken about the way the world is, could I not be mistaken about a great many other things?