Summary: For Audio Click Here Three guys walk into a bar, one’s a Jew, one’s a Muslim and one’s a Christian. Now remove the word bar and input the word basketball court and you actually have a snapshot of my daily life. Every evening around 7pm I meet up with my friends and we play basketball. Normally, we only like to play on each other’s team and if there were ever any altercations on the court, we are the first to step up for each other. This unspoken bond is an example of tolerance and progress at its best. We are an eclectic bunch of gentlemen and even though we have differences, we embrace our similarities. We don’t need to speak about the years of fighting known as the crusades, which would have people of our religions fighting each other upon sight. We don’t need to speak about the holocaust, which shines a dark light on our history and unnecessary persecution. We don’t even speak about the fear some people have that comes from the perception of the Muslim religion. See these things are divisive and in order for us to keep winning on the basketball court and in our friendship, we need to stand together. Even though we make jokes about each other’s differences, it’s all in good fun because we know that our differences are only important enough to laugh at. We are only serious when the basketball game is on the line and we need to score the winning basket. In life we believe that in order for everyone to progress we must recognize our differences but embrace our similarities. This is the untold bond that we all subconsciously agreed to when we decided to be friends. I accept my friends for who they are but I do find time to question them on their religious beliefs as well as give them my perspective on religion. These fact-finding sessions are usually just informal moments when we just ask each other questions to learn even more. We seem to thrive and grow the more we know about each other and therefore the bonds grow stronger. This is much more then I ever expected in life since I grew up around people who were like me and never had the opportunity to embrace others who weren’t like me. I went to church with only people who shared my beliefs so I could never ask other people why they believed what they believe. I only associated with people who did the things I did therefore I never had the opportunity to ask other people what they like to do. This is the best of embracing my new friends because they are so different from me but share the best similarity in basketball. Therefore, let me retell my joke the correct way. Three guys walk onto a basketball court, one’s a Jew named Reid, one’s a Muslim named Rasheed, and one’s a Christian named J. Success. Welcome to Tuesday night, it’s 7pm and it’s time to play some basketball.Success is Inevitable...So Get Ready...www.iamsuccess.net
