This week brought me from time studying petroglyphs in the Utah desert to speaking to 2,500 Native Americans assembled in Vegas to speaking to 400 Support Staff at the World Bank in DC.

In each location, I found myself amazed at the commonalities in our cultures in spite of all the apparent differences.

As a speaker, it’s always a bit unnerving to present to a group whose cultural background is so different from my own and yet time and again, I learn that the themes which arise in our human journey—though disguised differently —are often by many.  The tendency for each of us is to look at how we are different from those around us rather than how we are the same.

Tonight, my husband and I stopped by to have dinner with my 85-year old father who lives across town here in NYC. He showed us a copy of a recent National Geographic magazine, and in it, an inscription by Alexandra Fuller.

She had written, “Culture is a form of immunity.”

Remember to move past your own and embrace others.