If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve noticed something a lot over the last few years. People and society in America has really evolved. The conversations have really shifted to a different level than ever before. Now, I know that some people will point out that we invaded Iraq and Bush this and Bush that. McSame this, McSame that. I’m not saying that the entire population has suddenly shifted into a super evolved race of highly intellectual human beings. I’m just saying that I’ve noticed a shift in the general conversations, particularly around acceptance.

Perhaps the most poignant example is the legalization of gay marriage in California. Sure, other states legalized gay marriage long ago, but California is the size of the United States 100 years ago. Achieving something in California takes a lot more bureaucratic wrangling than Hawaii or Massachusetts.

I have, however, noticed something very interesting with the shift in acceptance taking place. In many cases, its a one-way street. For example, you can either support gay marriage 100% or you are an “old way thinker”. You can either want Obama style change in Washington or you are “more of the same”.  Not supporting gay marriage is as personal a choice as someone who does support gay marriage.

Believing that something should be illegal is as personal a choice as anything else. How often do you drive at or below the speed limit? Driving above the speed limit is illegal, but are we really going to abolish the speed limit? Now, some might argue that we are talking about completely different things. After all, in one case we are choosing to sit in a fast moving vehicle and the other is that we are choosing to support gay marriage or animal rights or are against global warming or high executive salaries (insert your cause here).

Fundamentally, we are talking about personal choices. No matter how much we want to believe that our personal choices in some way or shape do not impact the rest of our community… We are left with the inevitable consequence of all personal choices having an impact on our community. We are all part of the same planet. Everything we do has an impact on the rest of the world, no matter how small we may think it actually is. We all have a right to respectfully disagree with anyone else’s personal choice.

Now, for a funny story… A business partner and I were meeting in Santa Monica to discuss a new business venture with a media company. We decided to have lunch before we met with the media company. There was a raw foods restaurant just across the street, so we chose to eat there. My business partner was carrying a bottle of Coca Cola. We walked into the restaurant and sat down. He placed the bottle on our table. Just a few minutes into our conversation, a lady walks up to us and says, “I can’t believe you brought a bottle of Coca Cola into a raw foods restaurant.”

A myriad of snappy insults immediately popped into my head. I wanted to remind her that not everyone on the face of the planet was so enlightened as her and my friend did not know the RULES to sitting and eating in a raw food restaurant. I bit my tongue and just said, “This is his first time at a raw foods restaurant. He didn’t know.”