If I can empathize with villains, it makes me wonder if evil is even real

Even if we are going through a terrible experience in this position we find ourselves in, we are taught to smile and keep on climbing. Once we get to the top, we can sell the ladder to someone else.

We often confuse unity with sameness. Unity doesn’t require anything to be the same. Yet we’ve been taught that if we don’t agree, we are incompatible. We say things like, “If you love me, you’d see things my way,” and feel betrayed when our ideas align with those of the opposition. My mom and dad…

Out of this narrow-mindedness, the brain only scans for examples that confirm our bias. If the example doesn’t confirm our bias, we filter it out as something wrong.

When we feel pain, our minds believe that we are excluded from life, especially when we go through our bouts of shame, guilt, and grief.

There is a divide between people who believe they can do everything better than anyone and those who believe they are not enough.

If our “choices” are already determined by our genes, our environment, and other outside influences, then the very notion that we are the authors of our lives is called into question.

Our sense of determinism comes from a deep need to bring order to a chaotic world. This predictability gives us the promise of control in the sense that if we can control the causes of things, we can influence the outcomes to our benefit.

Our lives become an endless improvement project, and then we die. This belief is not the life that I would like to live.

Before the reframing of this word, perfection was seen as total, regardless of whether anything was good or evil, rich or poor, and sick or healthy. Everything belonged.