We are all different, yet alike

Lately I have been thinking of all the encounters I have made during World Youth Day in Krakow last summer. 

I have had many discussions with friends about Egypt and their countries: the challenges, the problems, hopes, wishes.. 

Actually, I have stopped talking about the political scene in Egypt for few years now for many reasons. Maybe cos of saturation after the intense years right after the revolution in 2011 or whatever it is called now, or cos people are now dividing everybody else according to either an enemy or a friend based on their opinion or simply cos I know that we shall face the consequences of all the past mistakes sooner or later so this is what we have to endure in this life. At the end, life goes on and it never stops.. so either go along with it and fight for whatever you want or just drop dead emotionally or intellectually or physically and be detached from the world.

Yet, what I've lived during the World Youth Day made me see the world from a different perspective.

Taking for example the issue of mixing politics with religion and separating religion from politics. These are 2 opposite examples yet both are regarded as very harmful to the general good. 

From one hand, taking Egypt as an example, we are suffering from politicians and others putting religion in everything to make people follow them or go to a certain direction. Egypt is a very religious country in terms of people putting religion on top of everything else although judging by the manners and the behavior of the general population, they are far away from the core of religion teachings (to be discussed another time). So this is a very dangerous game as having religion controlling everything is a big problem because when you try to discuss you are labeled as enemy of God and a non believer.

On the other hand, taking some developed countries where religion is not taken into consideration is also creating lot of debates on main issues like the right of life (abortion, euthanasia... ). 

In Egypt we are talking about basic rights for people, right for a good education, health system and safe environment.. other countries have already these needs satisfied for the majority so the discussion are about other topics as per Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

What some countries consider freedom of speech, other considers as hatred speech, what is considered as freedom of act in other places it is seen as immoral and so on..

So this brings us to the point, where do we stand from all this? There is no ideal place to live in, each has its own problems. What changes is the perspective. 

This was an eye opener to me and also a ray of hope that I am not alone in this world. There are others like me, who really believes they can make a change, who stands by their own principles and do whatever they can even if it is small.

Of course i'm not comparing to what's happening to countries at wars. This is totally a different story and I feel so bad about the crazy world we live in because despite the advancement in technology and the evolution, we still live in a jungle where the strongest rules the world for the sake of power on the expense of humanity.

So bottom line, every place has its own challenges and there is no such a place called paradise. You live in Paradise when you live in harmony with yourself, when you live according to your believes, when you do your best to make it a better world.

As Ghandi once said "be the change you want to see in the world".

You may choose to change country, to change work, to forget about everything else but if we don't change ourselves, the world will continue to be as ugly as it can get.