Something in me wants to be better than you so it can feel good enough. It sees a world of limits, a world where there’s only so much worth to go around. It’s deep in some dark corner inside me. I don’t want it to be there, actually I hate that it’s there. So I try to hide it and deny it’s there, maintaining my image of a spiritual, self-confident, progressive person. But sometimes, when I least expect it, that dark creature crawls out of its cave and grabs a hold of whatever it can possibly destroy. It tells me I know more than everyone else, and my ideas are the best. It tells me other people aren’t as helpful to the world, and that I’m a better person. It tells me other people are less cool or cute, less political, less hard-working, less impactful, worse partners or friends.

This creature goes deeper than labels and identities. It comes into my family relationships and how I interact with my partner. It says if I make more money than my partner then I must be more worthwhile. If I meditate more than my family, then I must be more spiritual. If I bring home more gifts, if I work out more, if I volunteer more than other people, then I must be better.

I know logically these are not true statements. I love my family and friends and people in general. In many moments I am grateful for everyone around me and all that they have to offer. But when I come up against people with different opinions or that do things differently than me, it gets tested. At one of the yoga centers I lived at, there were a couple of guys I’d labeled from the get-go as straight, white, frat boys; which was not something I saw any value in. And on a superficial level those labels were accurate, but that’s not at all who they were. After living with them for some months, I was able to look deeper and see their humanity. They were sweet, they were caring, and they faced the issues in their lives with sincerity and thoughtfulness. They taught me about spirit, about friendship, and about community. And probably greatest of all, they mirrored to me that the white man I was becoming as I transitioned could be great too. They taught me that I’d been wrong initially, and that they also were a part of God.

What if it really is our differences that make humanity as a group whole? And I don’t mean that on some cheesy, vague political level that sounds good but lacks any kind of depth. I mean on a second by second level of walking around the street and deeply knowing that each person brings very different and equally important medicines to this earth. I mean Democrats and Republicans, extraverts and introverts, people in housing and on the street, people of every individual experience. What if we deeply, deeply need each other, in every single way? What would that feel like to know this in every fiber of my being? What would daily life and little interactions look like if we knew that every one of us was exactly as important as every other one? If we dug deep enough to excavate every dark creature in us that told us otherwise, so that every small moment was filled with this understanding?

I think what this tangibly changes for me now is that I need to accept a lot more help than I have in the past. That it really is true that everybody around me was sent to me to teach me. I need to accept the teachings of the sixteen year old in my office, even if I’m the one being paid to support her. I need to accept that she knows way more about her world than I do, and that she will teach me some of the amazing things teenage transgirls have to offer the world. I think this shift means that I need to accept material gifts from a female partner that makes more money than I do, and know that doesn’t make me less worthwhile as a man because I need her help, but that by working together is when we are truly great. I think it means that I need to accept the spiritual wisdom from my family and co-workers that don’t meditate as much as I do, knowing their life experience, subtle energy, and God-given wisdom can teach me things about spirit I could never know without them. I think it means that I need to accept the kindness of strangers at the grocery store, knowing that I need their patience when fifty of us pull into a parking lot in Los Angeles that holds only twenty cars. It’s the understanding that we need each other in every second and in every way.

Alone we are blind; together we are perfect. I need you to see.