Throughout my civic issues blog posts, we have seen the danger of telling a single story. We saw this through the first post with a TED Talk, the second post with minority grouping, the third post with the stigmas surrounding people with disabilities, and the fourth post involving the stereotypes of mental health. 

Although many different topics were covered, they are all linked by the key theme that making yourself aware of different perspectives and listening to multiple narratives is essential if you want to get anywhere in this world. When we listen to one single story, we subject ourselves to whatever judgments that story holds, but when we expose ourselves to man different views it’s easy to find that those judgments do not hold the truth. 

I wanted to focus my CI blog posts on this theme because I think it would solve a lot of the issues we face in our world. Most of our disagreements come from our lack of understanding other perspectives. If we view the world with an open mind, it is interesting how quickly we find people to be more welcoming and inclined to share their opinions with us. 

Of course, there are exceptions and certain opinions should not be tolerated if they are hateful and degrading, but most of the time those opinions come from bias deeply engraved by ignorance and fear. Those people are most often closed-minded and that is why they struggle so much to be kind. 

I hope that if you take anything from these blog posts, it is the ability to listen to multiple stories, opinions, voices, and perspectives with only open ears. Form your judgments after they are finished, and make sure you are consuming media from multiple sources. Do not subject yourself to just one opinion, even if it aligns with your own, because even that will lead you down a path of bias and stigmas. Our world is filled with billions of people, and each have their own tale to tell, so take the time to listen to as many as possible, and you’ll be surprised how much you will learn and grow.