Awareness of Otherness - Essay Example

Diversity in various aspects of our lives plays a crucial role in expanding our visions and experiences, and in the process enriches our lives. The United States is known as a melting pot, primarily due to the cultural composition of the country and its seamless assimilation of people belonging to diverse cultural backgrounds. Such diversity has now become an inevitable part of our daily lives, thus leading to the increased need for cultural competence. It has become increasingly important for individuals to learn to interact with people belonging to culturally, socially, and politically diverse backgrounds in order to become global citizens. Such interactions help in developing a broader mindset that is tolerant towards diversity. Interactions with people from diverse backgrounds help in our personal as well as professional lives since it provides us an opportunity to learn about their different ideologies.

A diverse society offers us an opportunity to interact with other people and connect with them. It helps us in understanding the social and cultural contexts to which they belong, and in the process contributes to our knowledge regarding different countries as well as their political, religious, and cultural viewpoints. This leads to our overall cognitive development. Furthermore, such interactions help us in sharing information and expanding our knowledge base and perspectives regarding different cultures. Also, the rise in social networking has further expanded the scope for information exchange and blurred the geographical boundaries, thus enabling people from across the world to interact and communicate with each other. The era of globalization coupled with the internet boom has created an entirely new world and has ushered in an era of global citizenship. It is of utmost significance, hence, for individuals to learn to interact and communicate with others in an effective manner in order to survive in this highly competitive and diverse world.

Cross-cultural interactions help us learn about different cultures and encourage discussions - a phenomenon that is not likely to be experienced otherwise in a university or school setting. Learning about diversity through personal interactions helps us in becoming culturally tolerant and transforms us into respectful and responsible citizens. It helps in forming meaningful relationships with those around us and offers interesting opportunities to learn about things that cannot be learned through textbooks. Such knowledge gained through personal interactions with the people around us may further help us in our workplaces. Today, there are various multinational companies operating in different parts of the world, which are operated and managed by managers who are competent in interacting with and managing a culturally diverse workforce. Our experiences during the early part of our lives help in shaping our identities, which in turn pave way for our future growth. Managers and leaders of tomorrow need to be able to have a deep understanding of people and be compassionate about the diversity around us.

The fact that diversity enriches the social fabric of our societies has been reaffirmed over the years. However, such diversity also poses several unique challenges which in turn give rise to critical social issues such as racism and prejudice. As a part of a culturally diverse society, I strive to promote and support diversity and refrain from activities that tend to fuel bias of any kind - be it social, racial, cultural, gender-based, and the like. My experiences and interactions with people other than those belonging to the same social and cultural background as mine, have enriched me in more ways than one and taught me to be tolerant towards those who are different. I use such experiences and apply them in my day-to-day life by behaving in a cordial manner with those around me and treating others with respect.