Isolation is deadly.

With good timing, meeting the right person could provide a world of opportunities that just aren’t possible on hard work alone. It’s time for Wichita State students to stop isolating themselves from other ethnic backgrounds and network.

Up until I wrote the story “Bridging the Gap,” I wasn’t cognizant of how diverse we are here at WSU. Diversity is great; you get an abundance of opportunities to meet people of all cultural backgrounds and learn something new. Sounds good, right?

But what happens when individuals aren’t open to meeting people of different cultures?

 I see it all the time. It’s time for students to realize that nothing great comes from living in your comfort zone. Things, people and opinions are always subject to change when you look at things with an open mind.

Consider the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”

Emerson believed that as human beings, our thoughts, opinions and actions should always evolve with the world. We cannot stay of the same mindset for too long, because it becomes dangerous; who’s to say that an opinion you had five months ago would apply to a situation you have now? It’s not guaranteed, but the evolution of life is.

Emerson continued: “He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?

Pythagoras was misunderstood, Socrates, Jesus, Luther,  Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

In this part of the quote Emerson explains how even though you may contradict what you say today with tomorrow’s actions it shouldn’t matter because you’re growing. At times, contradiction is a form of correcting ignorance; nothing is absolute, things are constantly changing.

Though you will be misunderstood, does it really matter in the end? A few moments of backlash won’t amount to meeting a great person or finding new opportunities to enlighten oneself.

To be quite honest, students on campus need to get over whatever it is that’s keeping them from speaking to individuals they aren’t familiar with just because they appear to be different. Emerson was far ahead of time, and his message still remains.

 Individuals that only see the world one way, or are small-minded would be so foolish to refuse change of a customary practice or way life.

There’s nothing worse than the, “I have always done it this way” kind of person. If we used to methods people used hundreds of years ago we would have never progressed this far as a society.

Just because you come from a particular group – and your only comfortable around them – it doesn’t mean you have to isolate yourself. We need to embrace diversity; it’s a beautiful thing.

Life is changing so we have to change with it.