Humans are inherently biased. Not only are we biased, but we are also contradictory creatures of habit who seek dopamine releases while desiring stability in our surroundings. We expect change, yet defend the status quo. Take me, for example: I want to be a writer, but I continually slack off and miss my Sunday blogs. I have a million reasons for it, and most of them feel valid to me. But to an outsider, it would look like I’m just making excuses, lacking motivation and discipline.

If we dig deeper, the truth is that I am so flawed and weak that I constantly struggle with my desires to be anything other than what I am in this very moment. Looming in the darkness of my thoughts, where only a faint light occasionally shines, is fear—fear that is soul-crushing, so soundproof that I can’t even hear my internal screams.

Imagine this: You say you care for immigrants, that we should all help them. But would you allow pop-up tents in your own fenced-in yard? Would you build an additional room within your property for them? If you did, would this new space be theirs to own, or would they have to pay you rent? Would your kids still enjoy the open backyard they once had? Or would this scenario make you uncomfortable?

I find myself crushed at the thought that maybe I’m not as kind as I like to believe. Maybe my kindness ends where my discomfort begins. I feel terribly sorry for homeless people, abandoned children, and immigrants. But would I really be okay with setting up tents in my own backyard? I shudder at the thought that I, too, might be a hypocrite. This is the same issue at larger scales, isn’t it? How is it different when we demand our country—whatever country we call ours—help immigrants, if doing so means someone will be “uncomfortable” with the proximity to real issues like poverty, drug use, criminal activity, and disease? Who gets to decide where and how we accommodate people in need? Why do we want to help, but still remain distant from the “problem”? And is this really helping? We often do good because it makes us feel like good people, but are we?

Can we say we’re simply wired from birth to self-protect, always choosing ourselves before others? Is this reason enough to retreat into our own one-person cave and decide who gets to join us in it?

I lick my own wounds of self-deprecating doubt and corrosion in my spirit, and as of now, I don’t have the answers. But I can say that I value dialogue, and I’m tired of all the labels we use to describe those we don’t understand. We condemn them before looking inward.