In Line for the Same Ride

My little sister went back to the United States the other night.

She was only here for a week, but visits like this always leave me feeling…tender. Not because we don’t love each other. We do. Not because of some buried resentment or old wound that never healed. We sorted those. It’s simpler than that. And somehow, more complicated too.

We are just very, very different.

Especially right now.

My sister is deeply liberal - what some may call “woke”. I am no longer. And, in my heart, I don’t believe that difference should be a problem. Even though so much of the world seems to be telling me it is.

But here’s the truth: I actually understand much of what she hopes for. I want a softer world too. A safer one. Kinder. A place where people aren’t judged by their colour, their beliefs, their routines, or the quiet details that make them who they are. A world where empathy isn’t rare and peace isn’t fragile.

But, unlike my little sister and many other liberals, I don’t believe that world can ever fully exist. Not here. Not in this version of reality.

And that’s where the tension begins.

Too often, what I see in modern liberal spaces is not just hope for change, but anger toward the systems that already exist. I understand that anger. I really do. I used to live inside it myself. There is something powerful about believing we can tear everything down and rebuild something pure in its place.

But human beings are not pure.

We are complicated, contradictory, wounded, loving, selfish, generous - all at once.

There is no version of humanity where everyone suddenly agrees, where judgment disappears, where conflict dissolves into harmony. That doesn’t mean we stop trying to improve the world. It just means we improve it within reality, not by pretending reality can be erased.

My sister and I had a heated conversation about an issue that feels urgent and frightening in the world right now - especially where she lives. We were clearly drawing from different information, different experiences, different emotional landscapes.

And still, I tried very hard to stay grounded.

I didn’t raise my voice.

I didn’t attack.

I kept my body language calm.

I listened.

I empathized.

I could see her fear. Her pain. Her sincerity. I could see exactly how she arrived at the beliefs she holds. And I respected that.

But I still disagreed.

And in that disagreement, something shifted.

She began to feel attacked. though I wasn’t attacking.

She felt I was calling her a liar or implying she was stupid, though I never did.

She felt my refusal to agree meant I was against her.

What struck me most in that moment was this: I could have made the same accusations in reverse.

Because I was listening.

I cared.

I was trying to understand.

Yet the conversation began to feel like there was only one acceptable truth - the one that she believed most passionately. And if her truth was absolute, then I could only be wrong.

But I don’t see it that way. That’s not how I enter conversations.

I don’t talk to be right. I talk to learn.

To share.

To test my own thinking and beliefs.

To widen the space between certainty and curiosity.

And this is where I find myself most confused by parts of the modern left.

They speak beautifully about empathy, kindness, safety, and truth. But in practice, disagreement can feel unwelcome, sometimes even threatening.

There can be urgency to convert, to correct, to save.

And those who question, even gently, are labeled stubborn, blind, selfish, or cruel.

Of course, people like that exist. On every side. In every ideology. 

But when empathy is offered only to those who already agree, it stops being empathy. It becomes something… narrower. Something… conditional.

The irony is painful:

To ask the world to embrace complexity and gray areas… while refusing to see gray in the people who disagree with you.

At one point, I was ready to quit. My heart quickened. My chest tightened. My stomach flipped. And I wanted to quit. My brain started working out scenarios of how to politely ask my sister to leave. 

But when I thought beyond that moment - what would it feel like after she left? Later that day? Tomorrow? What about the next time she visited? I know I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t and shouldn’t. So, I took deep breaths and continued the conversation.

Thankfully, my sister and I found our way back to each other.

She apologized for possibly being too sensitive. 

And I apologized if I unintentionally hurt her.

And we meant those apologies. Not because family dinner was coming and we wanted to avoid awkwardness. But because we love each other. Because neither of us wants a canyon opening between us, placing us on opposite sides of something that was never meant to divide us.

Because the deeper truth is: we are not on opposite sides.

We both want peace.

We both want safety.

We both want a kinder world.

We both want empathy and love to matter more than power or fear.

We just don’t agree on how to get there.

And maybe that disagreement isn’t the real danger. 

Maybe the real danger is believing that someone who shares your hopes, but questions your methods, is your enemy.

I keep thinking about an image that feels strangely simple:

Two people are standing in line for a roller coaster ride. Their turn to board comes, but they begin fighting about which side to sit on. They agree that the ride is worth it. They want to take it.

Everyone waiting for the ride to start, and those behind them waiting to get their turn, simply wait.

Frustrated.

Confused.

Stuck.

All because two people who want the same experience and destination can’t tolerate a different view from the window.

I don’t want that for us.

Not in my family.

Not in my country.

Not in this fragile, beautiful world we’re all trying, imperfectly, to live inside.

Maybe the bravest thing we can do right now isn’t winning arguments.

Maybe it’s staying in the relationship.

Listening longer than feels comfortable.

Agreeing to disagree because we have different logic, experiences.

And recognizing that we actually want the same things.

But allowing love to remain bigger than ideology, bigger than being right.

Because in the end, the goal was never to sit on the “right” side of the roller coaster.

The goal was always to take the ride. Together.

Ⓒ February 2026. Beki Lantos. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.