We’ve all heard, at one time or another, that there are no two snowflakes alike. Science has confirmed this. It is estimated that there are something like ten quadrillion (that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000) water molecules that make up a snowflake. Thus, while many snowflakes at the microscopic level appear to be similar, at the molecular level they are all different.
Which brings us to you.
You are unique, to say the least. And so am I. At the molecular level, to be sure, but in a number of other areas of involvement, measurement, comparison, etc.
What this means is that each one of us see the world in slightly different ways. You and I have differing perspectives on everything from this morning’s global sell-off on the world financial markets to the fallout of the Ashley Madison web hack debacle.
We all see things differently. It’s meant to be that way.
Put another way, we all are positioned in a unique way to see and filter everything locally, nationally and internationally, even cosmically, is different colors, shades, shapes, nuances.
One angle is your time in human history. Another is your geographic placement (are you Oriental or Occidental?). How about your embedding in the economic strata? Your level of education provides you with special tools for this task as well.
The biggest variable is the questions you ask of people and of life. The late Rabbi Dr. Edwin Friedman shared this anonymous quote before he died: “If you do not have answers, do not feel too badly. But if you do not have questions, you had better feel your pulse.” A mentor of mine once told me that he asks questions to get…answers? Wrong. “To get to better questions.” The Socratic Method is not going away anytime soon.
You have a place in this world for a reason. You’re not an accident (I’m a theist.) When you ask questions, when you speak up and out, you bring–unless you’re a parrot–something unique to the discussion, new light, slightly different perspectives and colors. And when you do, people gain greater insight. (Do you really want to leave this to the pundits, the intelligentsia, and mainstream news media on both sides? I didn’t think so.)
So take life in. Ask lots of pain in the backside questions of it. And speak up!
The Upside 
