Unifiers: The Little Things That Unify the Human Race

The true unifiers of the human race may not be politicians or world leaders. The unifiers may well be those little time-honored goodwill gestures that humanity displays at its best. The really neat thing about these unifiers is that do not require us to belong to the same country, religion, team, or ethnic group.

At the risk of sounding simplistic, here are the simple things that have proven to connect different people and bring them together every day around the world. We only need to widen the circle of the people with whom we share these unifiers:

1. Giving & Service: Taking the time to give and serve, making time to help meet a need in the spirit of charity, that always unifies the hearts of our common humanity. Whenever you volunteer to serve another needy person out of your heart of charity, you become a part of the unifying power that is service to humanity.
2. Smile or laughter: Keep a smile on your face, and you'll see how many smilers you'll meet today. Smiling will connect you with people, even with total strangers that you may not want to say "Hi" to. So keep your smilers on.
3. Music: The purest form of music unifier is music without lyrics. Thus, singing does not unify as strongly as music minus words. The words of a song might offend, but rarely is one offended by the sound of a violin or saxophone.
4. Sports: It is strange that something as competitive as sports have proven to unify humans. While fights do break out at sporting events (as in a recent WNBA game between Los Angelos and Detroit), we still consider sports a unifier, because at a sporting event brings people and nations together to compete as opponents, not as enemies. The Olympics and World Cut are good examples of the unifying power of sports. We will soon behold human unity at the Olympics games in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. Doesn’t the slogan of the Beijing Olympics confirm the abiding yearning of humankind? The slogan, which calls on the world to unite in the Olympic spirit, is “one world, one dream”! May that dream come true someday in all its fullness and glory.