I’m proud to work for a company that hosts an annual Days of Understanding, attempting to bring together our varied and dispersed workforce into conversation around diversity, equity, and inclusion. This year it kicked off with a guest speaker, Paul Martin, Chief Digital Officer at Sony Pictures. He was able to talk to us from his 20+ years in the DEI space about lessons he’s learned along the way. But one quote of his struck me. He said, “You have to more curious than you are certain.” He then described an exercise where you hold up a dollar bill between you and another person and ask them to describe what they see on it. They will either describe a pyramid or a face, but regardless you will see the opposite. Paul said:

Often times there isn’t a right and wrong, just a perspective you can’t see.

And how right he is, whether we are talking about someone experiencing prejudice or bias, or our feelings about masks on public transit. We need to stay curious, stay learning, stay uncomfortable in our journey to understanding.