AGREE TO DISAGREE

AGREE TO DISAGREE

So there I was talking to a friend of mine and he said “we never seem to agree on anything do we?” and I reacted with a “so?.....” and left it hanging there as I left for the day. All the way back home I was wondering about what makes me have such great friendships even with people I have nothing in common with at first sight. But then again, I decided, we do have one thing in common, obviously, one vital thing and if you haven’t guessed what it is yet, hold on, its something called “maturity”. Yes that’s right, when you spend time with people who are mature and have no hang-ups and insecurities (like how most of my friends are) then you can listen to and acknowledge differences of opinions without being offended by it or the speaker who expresses it. It’s only people who are unsure of themselves and their own opinions who want/crave like-minded people to always agree with them. Having a different point of view is not necessarily a bad thing in my view. We are sometimes restricted by our own life experiences and it takes someone with a different life journey to shake us out of our complacency and show us a different life.

Like in the movie Aladdin when the super hit song “A whole new world” (written by Alan Menken) and sung by Aladdin and Princess Jasmine contains the words “I can show you the world…….A whole new world, a new fantastic point of view,……..” and that’s what friendships are supposed to do – show you a new point of view, taking you beyond your own limitations of imaginations. And in the course of that if we feel we don’t always agree it’s a good thing according to me. I am a great lover of  masala films- the dishyoom, dishyoom ones with two duets/four fights formula…while I have a few friends who watch Korean movies (or as I term them “award” movies) and keep raving about them all the time.  And you know what? we get along well with each other because we might not agree on our choice of movies but we are both, in the end, movie fans. Similarly I have friends who swear by Ayn Rand while I regard the old hag with distaste, still it doesn’t stop us discussing books in general and being book-worms together. And I could go on and on with examples.

In the end it all boils down to this- if we are intelligent and mature (and not necessarily in that order) it doesn’t matter to us what our friends eat or what they watch or what we agree on….we are human beings all and we have our individual quirks and none of them makes a whit of difference to our friendships. And that’s how being friends with me feels like. So tell me – are you mature enough to tolerate me when I disagree with you? Do tell…