There are only two kinds of people in the world...

Some sayings are more popular than others.

There is one that starts off like this, "There are only two kinds of people in the world...." I grew up listening to people spew out different variations of this saying and I cannot express how much it has intrigued me over the years. Here are some of my favorites:

There are only two kinds of people in the world, men and women.

There are only two kinds of people in the world, good and bad.

There are only two kinds of people in the world, those who give and those who take.

There are only two kinds of people in the world, those who want to do the work and those who want to take the credit.

There are only two kinds of people in the world, those who last and those who fade.

And finally my favorite,

There are only two kinds of people in the world, those who get stomped and those who do the stomping!

I am sure that you have heard just as many if not more variations than these. Looking at all of these different "two kinds of people" leads me to one question. If there are only two kinds of people in the world then why is this one saying so diverse? It appears that in the community that believes only two kinds of people exist there is a discrepancy about what those two kinds of people are like.

So, it is safe to say that there are not two kinds of people in this world. There are almost 7 billion people on this tiny rock that circles a tiny star in a tiny galaxy in this great big universe. In the grand scheme of existence humans are very small, but that does not mean we are justifiably common. We are all different.

Let's face it, all of the above examples are inaccurate. People cannot be labeled as either good or bad. We all do bad things sometimes, but there are those other times. There are those times that we chose to help one another. There are times in which we chose to love rather than hate.

There is no such thing as givers and takers. All of us give, but there are certain periods in life when everyone becomes selfish. We are all givers and we are all takers. It just depends on where we are in the moment.

We all want to work and we all want the credit for our work. We've all been stomped and we've all done some stomping. We have all lasted to this point ,but someday we'll fade. We'll become worn out or we'll give up. Some of us have experienced this in small doses already.

There are even people who aren't sure how to identify themselves on the basis of gender. There are physical deformities that can make gender complicated. When both sexual attributes are available how does one decide what gender they are? Some people have been involved with different forms of mental, physical or sexual abuse that has left them confused and unsure of who or what they are.

So, maybe people are more complicated than we think. Maybe we are all complex and deserve a certain amount of patience and understanding. Or maybe the saying is correct. Maybe there are only two kinds of people in the world, those who believe that there are only two kinds of people in the world and those that don't.