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This video summary was created using Kapwing. I have begun recording full-length videos and will work backward over time to update these videos.
Why read this post?
Wars, murders, suicides, overdoses, and so many other human-on-human tragedies. They all seem to be accelerating across the world with no end in sight.
You may not be impacted today, but you have probably worried recently that you could be. We can only control ourselves, so what can we do to be and feel safer?
Corny as it may seem, I believe that by truly loving every person we can move the world toward creating the safety, stability, and unity that helps humanity achieve greatness together.
Because I have found myself confused when trying to show love, I am humbly sharing my thoughts after countless failed attempts to love the way I wanted.
By reading the below conversation with myself, I believe you will have a deeper understanding of why loving everyone matters, what it means to love everyone, and how I came to those conclusions.
I have found that loving other people is the only option as there are no alternatives that don’t put everyone at risk and limit our potential.
Luckily, love is free so perhaps we can actually change the world by simply giving it to each other.
And now to the conversation...
Why does love matter?
To me, people need to feel a deep connection with another person that allows them to feel safe enough to take risks and discover the best version of themselves. Safety to be who they are and not risk losing that person.
I believe it is why marriage is intended to be a lifelong commitment and why we speak of unconditional love from a parent.
I find this definition interesting because there are no specific requirements for this person. Technically, you don’t need a significant other, family, or friends to experience love.
You just need to be able to feel safe enough within your interactions to grow with the other person. All of those people can provide love, but so can a community of nameless strangers (at least in my experience).
So if we can experience love with anyone, how do we know who to love?
I believe the sentiment is “Treat others the way you would like to be treated.” In other words, you should love everyone if you want to be treated with love by everyone.
Sounds exhausting, can’t we just love some people? Why everyone?
Well, what would we do if not love?
Some have told me they are “indifferent” to other people.
I think back to a celebrity that said something like… “I would rather you hate me than be indifferent to me. At least you care enough to hate me.”
To some, indifference is even worse than hate because we become as irrelevant as a grain of sand. When someone thinks of you as a grain of sand, it means they could walk all over you without a care.
I wouldn’t want another person to walk over me carelessly so indifference doesn’t seem like the answer.
As for hate, my mother would remind us that “hate is a strong word” and we should be careful when we use it.
I wouldn’t want another person to hate me so.… What would we do if not love? I have not been able to answer this question and I return to love being my default for everyone.
Ok so, how would we love everyone?
This sounds overwhelming so I return to the definition from earlier.
We care more deeply about and create safer interactions with everyone.
To me, caring deeply means caring enough to understand the other person’s “whys” more than their “whats” so you can go beyond their actions and get to the intentions that drive those actions.
Caring opens the door, but love will only enter if it feels safe so we must help people feel safe by reserving judgment of those actions as we explore intentions.
By reserving judgment, we allow trust to build and love to grow.
So the lesson is, don’t judge?
Actually, the lesson is to love everyone. It doesn’t matter who they are, where they’re from, or what they did as long as you love them.
Screenshot from Backstreet Boys music video "As Long as You Love Me"
I believe love requires judgment. If there was no judgment, there would be no care and we are back to indifference.
Instead, you hold judgment until you see a misalignment between their intentions and actions.
At that point, you try to understand why because you care.
No matter the reason for the misalignment, love grows because the other person will appreciate that you cared enough to ensure they do what they want in the future.
Woah, this sounds like A LOT of work! How did I get here? Why would I do this?
You get to love yourself more!
Wait, what? How did this become about me?
If you are looking to have more love in your life, there is no person able to provide that more often, deeper, or safer than yourself.
Apply the same method to yourself and as you align your intentions with your actions, you become happy that you cared enough about yourself!
Then, why would we need other people?
Well, are you all-knowing?
I have never found an all-knowing person. I have found people with a lot of knowledge, but “all-knowing” is tough since all is everything.
Naturally, everyone is in their own echo chamber without the knowledge others have so you actually need other people to tell you when you hit your chamber’s wall.
You simply don’t know what you don’t know. You are limited so you need others to expand your limits.
Selfishly for yourself or selflessly for others, you are going to experience better outcomes with love.
Wait, how does this solve human-on-human tragedies?
As we listen to “why’s”, we learn how to prevent tragedies.
Then with our judgment through love, we can actively prevent them.
The only way we can truly listen to those people is to be open enough to love them through painful moments.
We learn the most from those we disagree with and this is why we say “love through pain”
I am confused… How do I do this?
The steps are actually simple…
- First, you ask questions to get to a topic you both would be interested in
- When you are confused or disagree, remain interested and ask why they feel or think how they do
- Continue asking questions until you understand their why
By diving deeper, these benefits are common…
- You gain a deeper understanding of your own opinion
- They gain a deeper understanding of their own opinion
- One or both of you become closer to each other and the world
May I have some examples?
Sure, let’s start simple with abortion and guns…
I watched a conservative host ask people in the street to “show me where life starts on this chart” with a full set of pregnancy stages.
One person asked “Why does it matter?” to which he responded “Some people believe every life has a right to live”
I now consider myself PRO-choice, but ANTI-abortion because I understood why a conservative takes the position they do and empathize.
To get there, I asked myself “why a life has a right to live if the United States doesn’t give rights until birth?”
Unfortunately, I cannot see how any other clear limit could be set outside of birth itself so I have to allow choice up until birth.
This is an uncomfortable opinion, but I understand and am comfortable explaining why I have it.
With that said, I do not want a person to be forced into an abortion due to human systems because I believe that is a human-on-human tragedy.
Instead, I believe we make having children the best choice so people choose to have children.
My recommendation to the pro-life side is to ask “why do people choose abortion over having children?” because solving those problems would be easier than restricting choice.
I was anti-gun for many years until I was asked “why do you think gun control would actually solve the problem?” so I explored why people were pro-gun.
At the core appears to be "safety" in one form or another which I cannot fault.
So “why are guns causing more problems if the main reason people want them is safety?”
Because we cannot know what people will actually do with anything. In some countries, tragedies are caused by cars, but we are not discussing car control.
So “why are people using guns to kill?”
Because it is the easiest.
I realized if you want to actually stop mass killing, we should be asking “why a person would kill people in mass?”
That requires a much bigger solution than gun control so I have now become anti-“gun debate” and pro-”mental health” conversation.
Looking at our world from this perspective, I believe our systems are causing people to feel depressed, isolated, and angry because our systems default to indifference instead of love.
I believe as we understand the systems that are causing so much pain, we will reduce the need for mental healthcare at the scale we currently need it.
For many (including myself), the quickest cure to depression and anxiety is loving through pain because it brings me closer to those I did not previously understand.
So after these experiences, I can speak empathetically with people that are passionate on both sides of these heated debates.
When you love through disagreement, you are showing a very genuine form of love because it shows you are accepting the other person in spite of those differences.
All of a sudden, those differences are far less significant than the love you have built.
A deeper, stronger love with someone you originally perceived as an enemy is a powerful thing that accelerates our ability to feel safe, stable, and unified with those we encounter.
Well, that was unexpected. I am not sure I buy what you’re selling, but now I am wondering why I had an expectation to begin with so I suppose it worked?
All we can do is love through pain and see the results, but it helps me daily.
I love and appreciate all of the people who are reading these thoughts and hope it was helpful!
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Summary of the Conversation
Why loving everyone matters
- Why Does Love Matter? People need love to become a better version of themselves.
- Who Do We Love? Everyone
- Why Everyone? Because indifference and hate are unattractive alternatives so only love helps
What it means to love everyone
- How Do We Love Everyone? Understand intentions and reserve judgment on actions unless actions aren’t aligned with the intentions. Then understand why to help them be aligned in the future.
How I came to those conclusions
- Why Would I Do Any of This? You love yourself more since you can love yourself deeper than anyone.
- Then, Why Do We Need Other People? Other people help us learn what we don’t already know.
- How Does this Prevent Tragedies? Learning why from the source helps identify how to prevent tragedies.
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Apply it!
- Challenge Yourself → Get deeper with yourself on why you feel or think about something! Try a Worksheet! Embracing Disagreement with Myself? || Sheet Template & Taylor’s Example || Doc Template & Taylor’s Example
- Challenge a Close Person → Get deeper with a closer person on something you don't agree on!
- Challenge a Random Person → Have a deep conversation with a random person on a mutual topic!
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Credits and Sources
Thank you to Everyone who has helped!
3rd Party Links in Order of Appearance
- As Long As You Love Me - May 25, 2011 - Backstreet Boys on YouTube
Writing Influences & Inspirations
- Conversations with countless friends, family, and acquaintances.
- Breaking Points - Helped me understand some of the ways I was restricting my ability to speak with people I disagreed with and how I could open up my heart again.
- Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (Music)
Explore My Influences for Context for more influences
Multimedia Credits
- Written - Written by me, Taylor Polchinski with influences from Corey Betancourt (LinkedIn)
- Audio-only - Written and produced end-to-end by me, Taylor Polchinski
- Video - Written and produced end-to-end by me, Taylor Polchinski, using Kapwing.
- Worksheets - Created end-to-end by me, Taylor Polchinski
- Embracing Disagreement with Myself? || Sheet Template & Taylor’s Example || Doc Template & Taylor’s Example
- Charts / Infographics - Created using Visme Infographic Maker.
- Tweets - ALL of the embedded Tweets were researched AFTER the writing of this post to enhance the reading experience.
- Memes - ALL of the Memes embedded were created using free credits from Supermeme.ai.
Other Read My Mind posts linked in this post
- None
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What's Next...
- Subscribe for FREE updates! → Pro-tip: Automatically sort the emails into a folder for reading later with Rules in Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud Mail. I use them to keep my inboxes as close to zero (0) as possible all the time!
- Another Article → Contents of My Mind (aka Table of Contents) has all of the articles and worksheets!
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!! CHALLENGE MY MIND !!
If you have any thoughts, questions, or other feedback, I would love to hear it! Please submit it via the Feedback form and I will see how I can incorporate it!
To see how feedback has impacted the blog, check out Feedback from the Community.
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Update Log
- Overhauled blog structure including adding "Credits and Sources" and "Jump to" - November 2, 2023 (Feedback from Lorraine Polchinski, Corey Betancourt, and Chris Aman led to restructuring and additions)
- Added Audio Version and Video Summary - July 14, 2023
- Updated Title and added worksheets, update log, and more - June 29, 2023
- Originally published - May 12, 2023
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