When we’re young, we tend to form friendships with people who are most like ourselves. That’s really what happens with high school cliques, isn’t it?

But as we mature (if we mature), most of us learn that we have something in common with everyone, even people quite dissimilar to us. When we focus on those commonalities and not the differences, when we befriend diverse others, our lives become richer, more textured.

Those were my thoughts when I saw this beautiful story about an unlikely friendship: (please watch video before reading on)

Is there an opportunity today for us to be more open, more trusting and more accepting of others’ uniqueness? To take a risk?

Are there relationships in which we’ve focused more on differences than commonalities, and can we find the commonalities and celebrate them?

This won’t work for every relationship. For example, there are elephants in my family that would stomp someone’s stomach in a heartbeat, just out of insecurity. Like maybe mine.

So it’s important to choose wisely.

But stepping out of a familiar pattern and enjoying another person’s differences could lead to a friendship as unlikely –and as deep–as Bella and Tarra’s.