I don’t want to know who you voted for, the name of your church, the color of your skin, or who you share your bed with. These labels say little about what truly matters in daily life: your values and your actions. I want to know if you keep your word, if you deliver on what you promise and if you are willing to help when someone next to you stumbles. The rest is noise.
Why do we insist on irrelevant questions? Because labels are mental shortcuts. It’s easier – and lazy – to put someone in a box than to spend energy understanding their convictions and attitudes. But emotional shortcuts come with a cost: prejudice, distrust and tribalism. The time spent evaluating ideological flags could be invested in discovering common goals.
Values as Neutral Ground:
- Integrity: Keeping agreements regardless of applause or surveillance.
- Empathy: A genuine effort to understand another person’s reality, even when we don’t share it.
- Meritocracy of actions: Evaluate people by what they do, not by what they are on paper or in a certificate.
- Collective responsibility: Recognizing that our choices affect those around us.
When these principles are present, differences cease to be barricades and become simply diversity of color, accent and history.
How to focus on the essentials?
- Ask, “What are you building?” Projects reveal more about character than biography or title.
- Observe behavior in the details. Chronic lateness, lack of transparency, gossip – or, on the contrary, punctuality, clarity and respect – reveal essence better than any speech.
- Collect similarities. Discover shared goals: a safer city, a more innovative company, better-educated children. These points unite.
- Practice the benefit of the doubt. Before labeling, look for evidence in everyday actions. Often, the “unacceptable difference” disappears in the face of aligned values.
What really matters to me? I want to know if you:
- Treat the waiter with respect.
- Pay what was agreed without shifting the blame.
- Hold the door for the person behind you.
- Celebrate others’ achievements without envy.
- Propose solutions instead of just pointing out problems.
This builds bridges – the rest builds walls. I don’t want to know about your labels. I want to know how you act when no one is watching. If your values push the world forward by one centimeter, then we already have more in common than any label could separate. Ignore the differences – value the similarities. Because it is in them that life happens, businesses flourish, and societies find peace.
That’s it.
