When I first started blogging, I decided that I wouldn’t want to segregate pieces of my life into multiple, different blogs. If there is one thing that my nursing studies taught me in multiple classes, it was that human is a psychologic-social-fysical combination that makes a whole human being. And because of that, everything that has an effect on one part of this triangle has an effect on the person as a whole.

As I wanted to be inclusive, I have decided to blog about everything that has significance to me: LGBTQ rights and issues, me being a Muslim, nursing issues and politics (in Finland), and travel thoughts. Mostly, I have received good feedback and hits for my blogs. But to my surprise, the posts that get most hits are the ones that I didn’t expect, and that led me to think about segregation again.

Segregation in itself has a bad resonance from over the years, and it has been linked closely to such issues like segregation of African-Americans and whites and aparthaid in South Africa and currently in Israel. As this is the case, shouldn’t I continue on the road of inclusion instead?

If I decided to break havestories.com into four different parts, it might garner me more hits as different kinds of people might find me because of the algorithms, but would it be beneficial for the people as they would not be exposed to other issues that might increase their understanding of the world around us? I know that at times, it is difficult to see and read about subjects that don’t align with our own perspective, but at the same time, it is important to step out of our comfort zone.

But inclusion also means risking alienating people who might otherwise read my blogs; some might leave because they don’t want to see religious issues being mentioned, some because they don’t agree with my view of politics, or LGBTIQ rights. And sometimes, these fears are the reasons why people take the easier road. Should I try to keep everyone happy and close my eyes to the difficult issues, or should I just continue being me, wholly and unapologetically?

Segregation in societies served those it needed to serve, leaving others in the dust, usually with nothing. In some cases, the oppressed throw rocks and fire some rudimentary rockets to the oppressor, and the oppressor answers with full-scale military operation. Maybe segregating your blog isn’t as drastic, but the idea of this remains the same: I need to keep my readers happy and feeling content with my content. And the best way to do it? Keep the unpleasant issues out of sight.

But if you were thinking I would start down that road and try to divide up my precious time from one website to up to four websites and all of my projects, such as my book project, you are dead wrong.

I see it important to be able to express my thoughts so that I don’t have to think which website to use, or if this is going to offend someone in a way that I should write it somewhere else instead. And like I said before, I also think that it is good to make people, myself included, step out of our comfort zones because then we can truly start to learn, understand, and appreciate differences. Because that’s what we are, unique, different persons with amazing possibility to learn from one another.