In my last post, I wrote about what I knew about, shelter dogs. This drew two wonderful responses from friends who had had cats and/or pedigreed pups. They were adding their insight to what I saw and provided information that helped me to expand what I saw from my own experience to now include theirs.

It is all about sharing ideas in this worldwide classroom we call ‘online’. That is what is so fascinating about it, that if we choose to participate, we will find that our views are not the only ones out there. I think of it as a classroom, where the teacher calls on different people and each of them share from their own lives or minds. While they may disagree or just come at the issue from a different place, we all leave the room changed in some way. Our thinking is a little broader, more inclusive.

In a classroom you have often met the person, spoken with them about other things, perhaps shared a meal. Online, this person might be a total stranger, with a name that doesn’t give you a clue to whether they are male or female, American, or from some other country you know nothing about. Yet somehow your ideas found each other, and you passed them back and forth like the salad at a friend’s home.

The first tenet to being open to enjoying this maybe first assuming you don’t know everything, that there is no right or wrong way to see things here. If your background made you believe there was always only one way of seeing things, this could be difficult. I do believe the more you take part, the more you begin to enjoy the fellowship of ideas and the broadening of your experience, if only somewhat vicariously.

Thank you for reading and sharing your comments. You stretch me and also make me realize I am not alone. Although I may see things differently than you, our insight and feedback is invaluable to the whole that we see, and as I go through life today, I will bring with me the thoughts you have shared as a link to my own, and I will see more than I did yesterday!