Golden Opportunity Share Your Culture

Everything in the Universe is collective energy including our thoughts and emotions about cultural diversity issues. Honoring  and understanding that the world’s multi-cultural diversity is really a true “blessing in disguise”, might just surprise each of us. As societies and nations fully embraces this belief we will all feel connected as ONE human race, marching towards the same goal of UNITY in the Infinite Universe.

Understanding the key principles of cultural diversity and the need to nourish such environments in work and society are critical to achieving harmony in the world. We are all born into a certain culture but that does not mean we are supposed to ignore all others around us!

Imagine the ability to be able to experience the full vibrancy, colour and depth of another culture without having to leave your country!  Canada is such a rich culturally diverse country that people could spend an entire lifetime traveling from Province to Province and nourishing their souls with such diverse cultural knowledge, still waiting to be discovered.

Canada’s diversity includes Native Indians to East Indians, Irish, Haitians, German, Ukrainian, Muslim, Eygpytian, Portguese, Spanish, French, British, Italian, Korean, African, Chinese and American brothers and sisters to name a few. They are living right next door or in our own towns, cities and villages.

We work daily with people from multiple cultures, yet how often have we taken the time to learn about one another. I know I missed many opportunties in the past. How often are we open enough to share our cultural depth with others? How many times have we all wondered about a certain cultures and their customs? Perhaps you’ve seen something on television that has really intrigued you about a culture, i.e. the food, a traditional dance, a wedding ceremony or perhaps even a cultural holiday.

You might have wondered, why does my stir fry not taste like the Chinese restaurant or why do some Indians wear turbans and others don’t, or why do Greeks break plates during their weddings? Then one day a golden opportunity has presented itself, for you to ask the perfect person the question you would love to discover. But, bang there goes that wonderful opportunity because you backed down in case you “offended them”.

I would like to share a couple of personal experiences around the multi-cultural sensitivity issues we face today:

1) A friend of mine contacted me about an Indian music performance group who were performing in Canada asking about Indian advertising vehicles I could point her to. She had been told by the marketing department that they had to be careful to market to the correct Indian audience because the performers had come from a specific territory in India.

I responded that in this wonderful multi-cultural diverse country why would the organizers not want to share this beautiful performance with every cultural society rather than just with the Indian community?

2) Another example was a ”Jehovah faith pamphlet” I had received at my home. A school teacher was stuck for cultural and religious knowledge until she had received a book on multiple faiths from Jehovah Witnesses. She was absolutely ecstatic that she could now understand and share this knowledge with her pupils in class. You would think that the school systems would have a cultural knowledge bank somewhere that teachers could access these resources?

I would like to encourage the reader to step outside of your comfort zone to explore the wonderful multi-cultural society we live in. Trust your instincts and heARTificial Intelligence that you might not be offending anyone. Go ahead ask your friends, associates, your neighbors or perhaps even fellow parents at your child’s school.  One simple question – I would love to learn about your culture or faith, do you mind sharing? And see what happens. It may surprise you, the opportunity is already lined up for those that don’t fear!

If they say yes, fantastic, you will discover some hidden gems and jewels of a culture that you probably would NOT have experienced.  On the other hand, if they say no, please don’t be offended and become sensitive, just look at the bright side 1 person in perhaps a 1000 might say no. You still have 999 others to ask!

A final thought, remember the world’s diversity of languages, traditions and cultures are a great treasure for all of us to enjoy while we live on this planet and when we’re all done we will shed our body suit and underneath we will find we were all the same and it was a exploratory game!

Let Go. Simply Trust Life.