Common Ground

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Have any of you travelled to Europe?

I was fortunate to spend 40 days with a backpack travelling from country to country. I met a young man from Switzerland and we became friends so I visited his family's home towards the end of my trip.

It was quite interesting when I tried to speak with his father because his native language was Italian and I spoke no Italian. Fortunately, we discovered that we each spoke a little French so we used that common ground to communicate.

I also noticed he had Algebra books on his shelf because he was a teacher but they were written in Italian! It didn't matter much though because I could understand the formulas since math is the same everywhere.

I had a fun few hours talking about math with a Swiss man because we found common interest and common language.

It sometimes takes extra effort, but I challenge you to find what you have in common with others instead of the obvious things that are different and see what happens.

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