Have you ever wondered why there is so much unkindness in the world? We usually think of the problem as something that exists on the outside.

“If more people saw the world the way I do, then everything would be great.”

Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves.

There is a bit of comfort in keeping the focus on the external because it lets us off the hook. It allows us to escape from having to ask ourselves the harder questions.

“Where am I unkind? Where am I impatient? Where am I not loving?”

Ouch. I don’t know about you, but that’s not the first thing I think of when I roll out of bed in the morning.

Yet the truth is that we have all of these things in us. Sure, we like to present to the world a persona, or a more glorified version of who we think we are, but at the end of the day we’re a mixture of a whole lot of things.

C.G. Jung considered this to be part of the concept of “wholeness”. Where we allow all of who we are to coexist without shame or judgment. In other words, accepting the reality that none of us truly “has it all together”.

Isn’t that freeing?

To know that you don’t have to do a thing today to earn love of any kind? That it’s okay to step off the treadmill of perfectionism and take a breather. Showering yourself first and foremost with compassion and kindness.

As we begin to do that even in the smallest of ways first for ourselves, it’s remarkable how it often times shifts how we see others and the world around us. It reminds us that it’s okay to be afraid and vulnerable, and to remember that everyone else is probably feeling the same thing.