Letters to my sons

A collection of thoughts and lessons I've learned along the way for my little men, and anyone else that's interested.

Posts tagged with #Inclusion

My sons,

Everything about our natural world tells us to stay in the safety of those that are like us. In the wild, while certain species may be willing to coexist in the same environment as one another, by and large everything in our natural world sticks close with those of its kind. We never see birds of different species flying in graceful formation together, or packs of deer mixed with buffalo running together. In fact, it is far more common to have a pecking order, to have predator and prey.

Growing up as a Chinese immigrant in Canada, that natural order was made immediately clear in every possible social realm. If you were athletic, you hung out with the other athletic kids. If you were a music nerd, you hung out with other music nerds. If you were an Asian kid in a predominantly white class, you naturally gravitated towards the other two Asian kids.

This is natural, but suboptimal.

It is true that birds of a feather flock together, and there is much benefit in that. Shared context, a common background and upbringing, even similar value systems all lower the barrier to connection and understanding. Not having to explain cultural norms and traditions certainly makes it easier to bring people together.

Easier isn’t always better though.

In fact, I’ve found that in many, if not most cases, easier is generally not better. Quite the contrary. When we have to work for it, when it takes effort, when it requires diligence and perseverance, it (whatever it happens to be) is generally much better. It therefore behooves us to understand this dynamic as it applies to the most important element of human society: relationships.

Natural outsiders

In every society there are outsiders. Because of the bountiful diversity that exists across the human race, there are infinitely many criteria which we can use to create groups, and thereby create a dynamic of those inside the group, and those outside. Add to that our strong beliefs, biases, and experiences, and any group can become not just an outsider, but an adversarial outsider. Jews. Christians. Women. Immigrants. Poor. Sick.

I believe that people naturally fall into three categories:

  1. People who create outsiders
  2. People who are excluded
  3. People who stand by and watch

Evolutionary forces create a strong desire for us to be included, accepted, and welcomed into the clan, and social history has shown that there are few easier ways to be included than to create a group to exclude. Just look at any average schoolyard. Not only are all three categories always clearly present, but children will move from one category to another seamlessly depending on the day, the activities being done, and the children in attendance.

I certainly experienced all of those categories over the years. One of my early memories included some of my friends deciding to “betray” a particular person in our group for some (real or imagined) slight. This involved a bunch of us sneaking back into the classroom at recess and moving the person’s desk into some remote corner of the class, separate from our cluster. While I don’t remember being the one to initiate the “betrayal” (fully admitting that this may be my unconscious mind trying to forget), I certainly stood by and watched as we actively and intentionally excluded others.

No longer an adolescent, I’ve begun to see that there is a fourth potential category. This category is unnatural, and requires intention, dedication, and persistence to create. This is the category of people who bring outsiders inside.

Including the excluded

When people are pushed to the margins, when they are excluded, that is when trouble happens. Practically every large scale conflict in history has been rooted in some sort of exclusion of some group. History is replete with warnings and examples of what happens when we exclude, of the many crises that unfold as a result. Our current day geo-political situation is chalk full of this type of conflict.

The first step in many crises is to include the excluded.

This is counterintuitive for humanity because we are evolutionarily predisposed to avoid things not like us. Our fight or flight instincts have been honed over hundreds of millennia such that our bodies instinctively detect same-ness and not-same-ness, and instinctively prefer same-ness. This makes it very natural for us to exclude those that are in the not-same camp.

If we struggle well against that nature, however, and intentionally learn to include the excluded, a great many things happen.

  1. We lift people up. When we include those on the fringes, we lift them out of a feeling of isolation, adversity, and survival and into one of belonging, collaboration, and flourishing.
  2. We make our world better. It is well studied and documented that diversity brings about a better world, that listening to one another, learning with and from one another, and partnering with one another brings about longer and lasting change. When we include the excluded and learn from each other, we are able to release our focus on the not-same-ness and focus on the things that we have in common, and in doing so make our world better.
  3. We elevate our thoughts and adopt a posture of learning. This posture allows us to take in, to broaden our perspectives, and to see the world clearly. It is from this posture that we may experience the abundance the Psalmist felt as he penned those beautiful words, “my cup runneth over”. When we include the excluded, we reorient ourselves and our world to the way that things ought to be.

So how do we do this? How do we integrate the practice of including the excluded in our lives? My studies and experiences have caused me to make a few changes that I thought I’d share.

  1. Be critical of your inputs. There are many divisive sources out there, from books to blogs to articles and reviews, with some more blatant than others. Be incredibly critical of your inputs, as they have the power to slowly but surely change your mindset.
  2. Regularly learn about/from someone not like you. If you look around and discover that most of your social circle is very much like you, be intentional about changing that. We all need to have people in our close circles that are not like us, that think differently than us, and that see the world from a very different perspective. Make sure you have regular mechanisms that allow you to interact closely with people not like you.
  3. Practice empathy. Empathy is a skill and muscle like every other, and therefore needs to be practiced, honed, trained, and intentionally exercised. Just as you make time to work out, to learn new skills, and to advance your career, make time to practice empathy, to develop it, to learn from others who are masters of it, and to find situations to apply it.
  4. Be balanced. Provide opposing viewpoints. When you make a decision about someone, play out the opposing viewpoint to see how the other side might see things. For example, when you’re interviewing someone and want to hire them, spend more time providing the best reason you shouldn’t hire them than you do on your reason to hire (or vice versa if you’re rejecting a candidate).

My prayer for you boys is that you are characterized as people who include others, who invite others, and who build community instead of tearing it down. I know this is hard - this is something I struggle with often as well. But I believe firmly that not only will we make our world better by including those that are excluded, but we will make ourselves better, and in doing so will enjoy a much richer and fuller life.


My sons,

Over the past few years, we’ve spent a bunch of time talking about the grand and the lofty. We’ve talked about attributes and character traits that are expansive, traits that encourage big picture thinking and visioning. Today we’re going to talk about something quite different and yet just as important, if not more so.

Mankind was created to move forward. We were made with this celestial imprint on our lives that drives us to dream, to innovate, to invent, and to create. But sometimes, the path to get there isn’t easy, and is filled with hardship, with opposition, with trials, and with people who would see us fail. It is a truism that our lives will not be easy, and it is a certainty that when we endeavor to elevate our thoughts and actions that we will face opposition that will attempt to pull us back down.

It is in those times that we need to have grit.

Grit is the ability to dig deep and to persist in your endeavors. It is the ability to remain steadfast in your convictions and your beliefs, and to stay on the path that you’ve determined to travel. It is the trait that enables us not to give up, not to abandon our aim, no matter how hard things get.

That’s not to say that being stubborn and set in the path that you’re taking excuses all else. Being steadfast doesn’t excuse bad behavior, and doesn’t give us permission to treat others without respect. Quite the contrary - having grit says that not only do we stick to our path, but we stick to our character as we hold the line.

There are those that abandon their posts when the going gets rough. Of those that don’t, there are those that stay and yet complain about it and have a poor attitude towards everyone, believing that because of their resoluteness, they have the right to look down on others.

And then there are those that stay and elevate the situation and all those around them. They stay the course; both the course that they’ve physically set out on, as well as the course to maintain their integrity and their values while the trials come.

That’s grit.

Not the people who can endure any hardship, but the people who can endure those hardships without compromising their beliefs, their integrity, their character, their praiseworthiness.

And that’s my prayer for the both of you. Life will get hard; there is no doubt about that. But my prayer is that not only will you be able to stay the course, but that you will be unwavering in your moral character as you do.


My son,

One of the most remarkable things about our world is how diverse it is. From the thousands of different species of plant and animal life to the millions of tiny organisms that the eye can’t even see, there is such diversity and imagination in every living breath and being that we encounter. And yet it all works together to form something more beautiful in its entirety than its individual parts.

As I’ve grown and learned over the years, I’ve realized that just as how the natural world has much harmony in its diversity and is more breathtaking and awe-inspiring as a result, our social world ought to follow nature’s path.

It’s an interesting phenomenon, our natural instinct to stay close to the similar, the familiar. It starts so young - little boys sticking together in packs because the girls have cooties, strangers from the same race sitting at the same lunch table together, people who dress the same way forming their own little cliques. Part of this stems from a feeling of familiarity and belonging in shared similarities; this much is totally fine and good, but the other part, the part that stems from fear of the unknown and fear of things that are different, that part is a bit trickier.

My challenge to you today is to be brave. Ever since you were little, your mother and I have been encouraging you to be brave, encouraging you to face your fears with bravery and be willing to stand up to things that aren’t right. You’ll need that bravery to be inclusive, to welcome all comers, to embrace those that are different than yourself. Not only because you’ll need to overcome your own fears, but because you’ll need to stand up to the masses that are telling you that you’re wrong, that those that are different aren’t welcome.

The Bible tells us that God so loved the world. The whole world. Not just one race, not just one gender, not just one demographic, not just one intelligence level, but the entire world. And our goal is to spread that inclusiveness in all our circles, be it professional, academic, or social.

So my prayer for you today is that you’ll be someone who is known for being kind, for being inclusive, for bringing in those that need shelter from the storm, for being the one that stands up for the little guy.


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