Everyone is afraid of everything right now. But do we have to live like this?

For years now, I’ve had this curse: I can almost always see and empathize with most sides of most arguments. I gotta tell you, it’s a very lonely feeling.

In 2011, I watched a video by Kathryn Schulz titled On Being Wrong. For the first time, I felt understood. She put into words the concepts I had been wrestling with for decades. In the video, she talks about how terrified we are to be wrong, how often we might actually be wrong (or even partly so), and how our inability to leave space for the possibility of being wrong creates blind spots and anger that feed so much of our society’s pain.

I’m not so blind as to think I don’t have strong opinions and their corresponding blind spots. In fact, when I turn on the TV, I realize just how judgy I can be on the inside. I have definite ideas about what’s right and what’s not, and I feel threatened when people don’t agree with my understanding.

Multiply me (even in my enviable self-awareness, lol) by the population of the Western world, and it’s clear: we’re all spending a lot of time feeling threatened. And the media, knowing we respond to fear, keeps feeding us the worst of everything. So the cycles of fear and anxiety roll forward.

But there’s a growing movement of people who are tired of breathing in fear and spewing out hatred. They’re looking for cleaner air, so to speak. They’re looking above the chaos to see that the skies reflect a constancy in this universe that doesn’t foretell the end of the world on a daily basis. And they’re looking around—at their neighborhoods, tattoo parlors, customers, and grocery stores—to find people who want to join them in being human together.

Lately, I’ve been trying to pay attention to how my body reacts to things. I’ve noticed I have about two minutes of social media tolerance before I start to feel nervous, anxious, or frustrated. The minute I notice that feeling creeping in, I log off. On the flip side, when I notice my heart feeling light or happy, I make a mental or journal note about it. The goal is to create more space for the lightness, and less for the heavy.

I recently spent a little over two hours in a new client’s home helping her with a project. As we chatted here and there between tasks, my heart kept growing lighter. Something about connecting with this woman and hearing a bit about her heart and her world brought me deep joy. I left with a generous tip, a dozen homegrown eggs, and a roll of bamboo toilet paper she thought I might want to try (it’s actually quite lovely and thick!). We’ve even texted back and forth since, as she loves sign language and found out my daughter is an ASL interpreter.

I’ve been thinking about why that little interaction has stayed with me. Partly, it’s because I was able to help her with something she couldn’t manage alone. It’s nice to feel useful.

But another part is realizing that she has been quietly giving to the world in really beautiful ways. I’ve probably driven by her home hundreds of times without ever knowing that so much kindness lived there.

Multiply that by the population of the Western world, and it becomes clear: kindness and goodness are everywhere. I’d argue they’re far more common than hatred.

Will you join me in trying to stay open-minded toward people who see and think differently than we do? In leaving room for the possibility that we might be wrong? If we do, we might find—together—that life doesn’t have to be so scary.