It is interesting to note, how necessity can strip us of most if not all our discriminatory inclinations. A classic example of this is ride sharing. By ride sharing I don't mean taxis, I am talking about good old okada sharing. I chose Okada to illustrate this point because you can't get closer to another human being than when you are on the same bike with them. You are literally joined at the hip. If you live around Volks, Iyana oba, Agbara, Badagry axis of Lagos, I am sure you can relate. A bike man would take you from Folks for instance to Mile 2 for 600 naira , he might take 500 naira on a slow day, if you are taking the bike solo. If on the other hand you are taking the bike with a partner, the bill gets split in two and you end up paying 300 naira or 250 for the same distance. It is a win win situation and everyone is happier for it. Needless to say, you hardly see people riding solo. The general practice is to get a ride partner and this is where discrimination goes out the window. The sole criterion for choosing a ride partner is direction , nothing else counts; age, gender, ethnicity, religious inclination , they don't count. A pastor can share a bike with a Juju Priest and so can a Christian and a Muslim, an Igbo man and a Yoruba lady . Total strangers who might not even recognize each other if they meet elsewhere but they share the same objective which is save that 300 naira, beat the traffic and get to Mile 2. I have personally shared bikes with over a dozen Men and women that I can't even pick out of a lineup and it got me thinking. If necessity can so bring us together in such an indeliberate manner, who says we can't deliberately cultivate tolerance and live in harmony irrespective of the lines that divide us. At the end of the day , you realise that we all have one objective; We are all trying to make this journey called life as smoother, as less painful, as less tasking and as easier as we possibly can. We can do way better than we give ourselves credit. #betterthanyesterday. Written by Ngozi Ubogu.