Acceptance and engagement can also be a double-edged sword when it comes to contentious topics. constructs such as race, sexuality, or political affiliation. These can come along with prickly high barriers defenses to entry born from recurrent attack. These are the walls we must scale most delicately and the ones that hide the most intimate rewards.

There is an ocean of difference between acceptance and engagement. One doesn’t work without the other. I see a lot of time pure acceptance that goes hand in hand with dismissal or disinterest. While it may seem kind or the right thing to do to move on from the differences between us it is actually far more beneficial to take the time and cultivate an interest within ourselves so that we can engage with others from a frame of desiring genuine for human interaction.