I have this light inside of me. It’s a light made up of the belief that anything is possible and everything should be fueled by love and that everyone has the capacity to fuel everything with love because love is limitless.

Maybe if no one had ever taught me anything I would just be a giant ball of light. If no one had ever yelled at me to stop crying, if no one had ever told me one day I’d understand hatred. Maybe if I was never told I’d have to make a choice between good and bad, or encouraged to be like or unlike others, I would know that everyone is the same and no one hurts others for hurting sake and everyone can look someone else in the eye and say “I love you” and mean it forever no matter what. Because that is what I believed on long car rides staring out the window at 6 years old. That was what I knew to be true before I was taught that I knew nothing.

Buried underneath life’s lessons I think each person has a light. Once it was all we were. Before we’d seen hatred consume the strongest loves, before “I’ll never be like her,” and “if only I were good enough” and, “it isn’t worth it.” Because the truth is, it’s easiest to hate the people that we love most when they are the people who have let our expectations down, It’s easy to judge a person by what they’ve done until you’re standing in their shoes. There’s no such thing as “good enough”—there’s only being yourself, and honestly, if it’s worth the thought, it’s probably worth the effort. It’s hard to remember these simple truths sometimes when we are so busy trying to build ourselves up to the standard. We don’t even realize that what we are really doing is breaking others down, even if it’s only in our heads.

The whole idea of being “good enough” requires people who are not.

Ask yourself what it really means to be “good enough.” Good enough for what? Good enough for fortunate events to occur? Good enough for society? Good enough for love? Am I good because I’ve never had sex, because I’ve never used drugs, because I don’t start arguments, because I say please and thank you? If I told you the opposite was true, would you think yourself better than me? I have thought myself better than other people because of the things we’ve done differently, and that mindset made it just as easy to think myself worse. When you judge a person by their actions and not their heart, you neglect to truly understand them, and that it something we are not usually taught.

If no one had ever taught me anything, I think I’d be a giant ball of light. Someone who would wake up every morning with a glowing smile and say, “Good morning, I love you!”

Every once in a while I forget the lessons that I’ve learned and everything shines.