The first day of my boarding school life was an important focal point of introspection through the years following the utter chaos and confusion that unfolded layer by layer unto my early adult life. I was just shy of being all of ten years old and I had just landed in a fully residential campus on the opposite side of the country with atleast a hundred other sobbing kids from various parts of India. 'Settling in' took a lot longer than many of our teachers and guardians said it would and it is understandable now in retrospect but there always existed a block, an obstacle, that was preventing us from sharing our experiences and turning this new journey of our lives into something fun and positive.
Language was the first hurdle and seemed to be the biggest at that point of time and rightly so. English was still alien to all of us and without a common medium of expression, it was more difficult to connect with one another. As I moved on from school to college and from college to my workplace a decade later, I faced similar situations as there were always people from different cultures and backgrounds, with their own unique mindsets and ideologies. With experience over time, I realized that, at the root of any activity, there lies a 'human' or 'people' aspect and this is an area of friction in many situations, regardless of the efficiency of the process that may have been laid out.
A month into my boarding school life, I dwelled upon an observation; All of us loved Pokemon (a cartoon), and we could speak about it with such passion that we forced ourselves to express better and be a part of the conversations and eventually bond. An extension of this was true in a way that was a novel revelation and over time that place became a home away from home. I took this learning of finding common ground to the next phases of my life and it did wonders for me and all those around me. Internalizing such a simple concept helped me overcome a vast majority of my problems in life, whether at a learning stage or later at work. In this modern age when the need of the hour is to be global citizens and be able to connect and solve complex problems in work and in life in tandem with those around us, I think back to those moments when we set aside our differences and instead, focused on what we had in common.