#chiploweworldtour2016

People may love differently, live differently, worship differently, laugh differently, speak differently and leave this world with different mentalities, but nearly every single person I have had the awesome pleasure to meet wants similar things out of life: They want happiness, they want success, they want peace, they want to experience and give kindness, they want to be loved and they want to be treated with respect.

I think everyone is guilty of being judgmental at times. We have all, even if just for a split second, judged someone we saw on the street or in a store by some measure or standard. Some of us realize this is blatantly wrong and that it has been ingrained in us, even if it's infinitesimal, through the global society we all have grown up and participate in. Many of us work against this quality within us because we realize a united human race is infinitely stronger than a divided one.

The photo above was taken in the island village of Yanuya, part of the Mamanucas island group of Fiji, with my new friend, Illy, on Nov. 6, 2016.

But how do you love someone that hates you? How do you let go of tremendous hurt – sometimes murder of a loved one – and accept someone even when they won’t do the same for you? If I’m being 100% honest, I can’t give you some magical answer. But, what I can tell you, is that it can be done. It takes understanding, sympathy and a LOT of patience. And in the spite of the fact that I can’t tell you exactly how to do it for yourself, I can tell you we must do it. We must accept and love those who hate us because it is our only hope of changing them and bringing them into a future of togetherness we all want.