There's a lie that I often give off, that when people label me a "good person", that label is somehow who I am.

I'm here to tell you that label isn't true, and the undersides of my past and my character make me just as bad, if not worse than your mistakes or the next person. I'm simply great at the art of deception, not of hiding my past or mistakes or ways that I could have done better, but great at presenting my flaws and mistakes to somehow make myself seem heroic.

Some of my mistakes are from my childhood, when I presented myself as a jerk and bully because I thought that was how I'd seem "cool". I went to six different elementary schools, and my immigrant family moved all the time depending on where the next feasible job was for my dad. I learned quickly to not hold onto or form significant relationships with my friends from school because it would make it that much more painful when we had to load all our furniture onto the U-Haul.

I learned to detach myself from meaningful relationships and friendships, and to own my identity as the "new kid". And as a kid, thirsting for attention in where my parents worked tirelessly and couldn't always give it to me, that I had to make myself a certain kind of "new kid." I had to prove that I was smart. I had to prove that I was tough. I had to prove that I was athletic

My drive to constantly prove myself sure was off-putting to a lot of people. My closest friends were annoyed by me, and there was a huge part of me that loved it: any attention was good attention.

But life changed, and I grew up. I learned to withdraw when tough circumstance hit, and I realized that I was just different from so many of my peers. Once I settled down in one area in middle school, I didn't know how to handle that newfound sense of permanence, distraught that maybe, some unforeseen circumstance could slip the rug from under me yet again, and I wanted to make goodbyes smooth and easy.

There's a way you act when you know the game will to be reset soon, and you have nothing to lose. But midway through middle school, my parents told me we were going to settle down. I realized I would later have everything to lose if I kept acting like I had a chip was on my shoulder and the whole world was against me.

It was this point of my life that I sank into deep anxiety, overanalyzing how each action I took would be perceived by my friends. I find at times that I can relax now, because the pressure is off, but in that period of time, the pressure was on, all the time. I expected perfection from myself because I thought perfection was what the world expected. And it didn't take me a long time to realize that the perfection standard was not possible, but that never stopped me from reaching for it.

And it was the constant torment at my latest shortcoming or failure that was necessary to humble me and bring me down. It bothered me that I wasn't as smart or competent as I thought I was. If I really wanted to play the game of comparison and measure myself up to others, the reality was that I was far from righteous, far from being a good person, and the consequently worst person in the world.

Although that process of realizing that was painful, it led me to a great realization: that everyone is a good person. I knew all my flaws, from vanity to self-righteousness to pride. Yet there was some force out there that kept blessing me and allowing a broken vessel like myself to keep doing good in the lives of others.

I realized eventually that that force was God, and that if God could love a wretched sinner like me, then I now see that everyone is a good person by comparison. That is not to say that people don't do bad things, but God has shown me that I am in no place to judge, and if someone like me can be saved, then who I to say that another person's actions defined them?

I learned, because of my own wickedness and sinfulness, that no matter someone's life, sexual, or political orientation, I could not see myself as superior, and that I was called to treat them with hope. Because compared to me, everyone is a good person and deserves that grace, mercy, and hope.