During 3rd quarter at Husker football games, it is tradition (at least when it’s warm), to get ice cream.  Now, there’s not a lot of choice here – it’s either vanilla, chocolate or a combination of the two known as the “swirl”.  I myself, am a “swirl” kind of girl. It’s soft serve at its best, for sure.  It’s nice because you don’t have too many choices.  Too many choices can cause long lines due to slow decisions, causing consternation among those behind you.  And so, we stick with basic vanilla and chocolate.

While we as Americans like our variety and choices, I find it ironic that we like to put people in either one of usually only two possible categories.  We’re either old or young, white or of color, liberal or conservative, gay or straight – you get the point – based on usually arbitrary criteria – whatever MY criteria is.  Be believe or don’t believe in this or that philosophy, or we either do or don’t support a particular issue. It’s just easier that way, right?  When there are only two choices, as I’ve determined them to be, it’s easier to either agree or disagree with people.  Very simply, we either agree or we don’t.  Period. We don’t have to build any relationship and find out that there might be some areas where we agree and some where we might disagree because then that causes confusion.  We find out that maybe it’s not either vanilla or chocolate but maybe there’s some swirl involved in there somewhere.

When my kids were toddlers, I tried to make sure there were not too many choices for them.  Do you want to eat the carrots or the peas?.  Do you want to wear the red shirt or the blue shirt?  Because we know that small children get overwhelmed by either too many choices, instructions or questions.  But eventually we’re supposed to grow out of that, gradually gaining the ability to choose among a variety of things, follow a longer list of  instructions and answer more complex questions.

Which brings me to my next observation.  If we’re supposed to eventually grow and mature in our ability to differentiate between more than two things, why do we still categorize ideas, beliefs, philosophies and people in no more than two camps?  Why does it have to be either for or against something?  Why do I either have to agree or disagree with you?  Why can’t it be more than just vanilla or chocolate?  Why can’t I have a swirl?And perhaps the swirl can just be an open mind or heart or thinking outside the box or creativity, or seeing the gray instead of all black and white. After all, I can still like both the vanilla AND the chocolate when they’re mixed together.

Now, please don’t confuse this discussion with decision making.  I’m a firm believer of making decisions and not “kicking the can” down the street.  I’m figuring out, however, that I can make my decisions based on more than one point of view.  If I only look at every decision I have to make based on one particular point of view, for instance, from a gender or political party point of view,  it limits me.  It’s important that I listen to a variety of points of view in order to come to my own conclusions.  That’s called thinking for myself.  It’s what I try to help my students do.  It’s what a large part of our country has forgotten how to do.

Look, people are more complicated than chocolate or vanilla.  They’re vanilla with chocolate chip cookie dough thrown in.  Or chocolate with almonds.  Or, heaven forbid, strawberry!  There are as many points of view as there are people, so why limit ourselves.  Just like getting two different scoops of ice cream together in one cone, mixing things up can be wonderful.