▶ Your Answer : Undoubtedly, relationship with others plays a crucial role in people’s daily lives in many of the places where they work or play. Some people think that it is impossible to mingle well with people from different backgrounds, while others do not. Both sides may have their own reasons to support their views. If I had to choose one, I would say that becoming friends with people who have different interests and beliefs is not only possible but also has various advantages. There are several reasons as follows. To begin with, if people mingle well with others from different backgrounds, they can improve their work performance. Interacting with diverse people requires them to be diligent, passionate, and self-disciplined. When such personal traits are developed, it is likely to bring a better result in their job. For example, Tokyo University found a huge difference between two groups of young adults in work performance. One group consisted of those who have many friends who have diverse backgrounds, and the other group was made up of those who have not diverse friends. The researchers found that the former was likely to have a higher score on the SAT than the latter. In particular, they showed a longer attention span, a stronger passion in their tasks, and a better ability to delay gratification. On the other hand, the second group tended to get distracted easily, procrastinated, and acted on impulse. This implies that having diverse friends is the key to success, academically, as well as professionally. Without broad relationships one would fall behind. On top of that, when people mingle well with people from different interests and beliefs, it exposes them to different lifestyles, customs, and cultures. Such exposures is likely to help them to acknowledge that different values exist, to understand this diversity and to ultimately be comfortable with it. For instance, when I way eight years old, I saw one of my classmates who came from Ethiopia eating his meal with bare hands. I felt very uncomfortable by his behavior because it was my first time seeing someone like that. I kept my distance from him and sometimes made fun of him. However, after spending a weekend with some of my African friends in my sports club, I got used to this cultural difference. I realized that we had a lot in common in a way that we all cared about our family and friends, were committed to relationships, and got easily hurt by what others say. After that, I no longer feel awkward and can make friends with them. All things considered, I strongly believe that the advantages of making friends with people from different interests and beliefs has far outweighed those of its disadvantages for the reasons I have mentioned above. All in all, the importance of relationships cannot be overestimated in the pursuit of success in life. |