One of the things I will always be grateful for about growing up in my family, is that the opportunity to listen and learn from others, was not only welcomed, but actively encouraged and facilitated.

As a little girl, I sat at the feet of my parents and their friends, relatives and the strangers they welcomed into our home, while they nibbled on Jatz, cabana and olives, or at long overcrowded dinner tables heaving with spaghetti bolognese.

I listened to the grownups share ideas, knowledge, experiences, worries, and differences of opinions.

They were lively discussions, yet not without pauses to reflect, and always punctuated with the humour and respect that underscored what was most important…remembering what they had in common in the ties that bound them or brought them together.

As friends, family, colleagues, humans.

I don’t remember much about the content of these discussions, but I don’t think that’s really what my parents wanted me to learn when they chose to keep my close by.

What they were teaching me, was the importance of gathering as human beings with more in common, than we will ever have differences.

To connect, listen, debate, and learn.

And in doing so, strive to understand how to address the challenges in ourselves and families, but also in our communities and beyond.

Even if we don’t always set out with those intentions.

It just happens when we choose to meet in this way, remembering the inherent value of each other, and with the understanding that it is more often our different lives, experiences, backgrounds, knowledge, beliefs and viewpoints, that offers us the greatest opportunity to learn, grow and solve problems.

As I grew, I spent time with my classmates and friends, playing sport, music, and enjoying ‘excursions’, and slumber parties…

My teachers encouraged me to think and not just regurgitate.

We had debating teams and wrote essays.

And as long as we could back them up with some evidence we did well.

I later went to Uni, and we discussed things.

Little was ‘off the table’

Political correctness was still in its infancy.

We were encouraged to raise issues and stand up for our concerns and beliefs, respectfully.

I don’t remember ever feeling ‘afraid’ to do so.

Though I know this was not a universal experience for everyone.

I travelled across the world and exposed myself to all kinds of experiences, knowledge and people.

Not that I meant to.

I was only twenty.

I was just curious and wanting to have some fun.

And as a child of the seventies and eighties, I did this in real time, dealing predominantly with what and who was in front of me, and my own feelings and thoughts about it and them, because that was all I had. Uncomplicated by the simultaneous opinions of people I did not know, and a barrage of marketing steeped in agenda. Or by the myriads of conflicting ‘truths’ declared by my hand held electronic ‘oracle’, which would suck me out of my actual world and further away from my instincts.

There is a reason that the phrase ‘expanding your horizons’ was coined.

We were able to expand.

And it was celebrated and encouraged.

I lament that I perhaps did not do as well for my children.

As I succumbed in part to ‘the machine’ that was being built around us as parents.

And one of the saddest realisations I’ve had of late, is just how far we, as individuals and Australians, have deviated from the way in which I was blessed to grow up.

Somehow, we have allowed ourselves to believe that we have to ‘pick a side’ and bolt ourselves to it.

Or that there is only ‘one truth’, and we must take that position and yell it into the world.

We’ve decided that ‘being right’, matters more than being together.

We are encouraged to exclude, alienate and persecute those who are ‘not on our side’, and that we must create families, friendships and careers, from within the echo chamber of what we think we know.

Upended relationships are acceptable collateral damage.

It is ok it seems, to hurt the people who love us, for the ‘greater good’.

We have let each other down terribly.

And we have forgotten the treasure to be found in differences, humility and at times, error.

We have forgotten that ‘To err is human and to forgive is divine’.

That an apology is a sign of character, not a flaw.

Less and less, are we able to separate the person from the belief.

And perhaps because of all this, and most tragically, we find ourselves living in fear of being ‘ourselves’.

Afraid to share our thoughts, seek knowledge, challenge the status quo, demand accountability, or live according to our own values.

Lest we are subjected to the lashings and persecutions of the world, we have unwittingly helped create.

We are terrified of the one thing humans struggle to survive – not belonging.

Most of us are beyond afraid, to stick our necks out, appear different, ‘rock the boat’, or make our thoughts on anything known.

We spend more time living in apathy or fear, and too little time facing what needs to be done, and working together to do it.

We know we are being silent when we should speak.

The price?

We find it harder to sleep.

We are anxious, sick, and angry… yet in a misplaced way.

We hold our hands over our ears, and lock our headaches in.

We pretend that all is well.

When it isn’t.

And for all our railing against them, we know it is not only ‘the politicians’ who are failing us.

It is, us.

Through sheer exhaustion, many of us have succumbed to the belief that we are powerless.

And I accept responsibility for the part my apathy has played, in contributing to the mess we now find ourselves in.

Especially politically.

So, do I have what it takes to listen, learn and challenge my viewpoints daily, so that our world gets bigger, not smaller?

I am pleased to say that I am watching people with the humility to do it.

Which gives me courage to follow their lead.

Less than 1% of Australians to date, are members of a political party.

Yet, about 100% of us, (including me!) are critical of the decisions they make and spend much time complaining about the results.

But it’s ultimately on us.

They say the world is run by those who show up.

Because the truth is nothing changes if we don’t.

Not the politics, not the division, not the quiet resentment building between us

The world shouldn’t be run by the loudest voices.

But by those who are willing to show up and sit down with people who see things differently.

Maybe the answer isn’t more shouting.

But a table, some honest conversation and the courage to stay when it gets uncomfortable.