Good Intentions, Mixed Motives, and the Humanity In Between
We all want to be seen for our good intentions.
Especially when we’re vulnerable.
Especially when we’re exposed.
Recently, I was talking with someone who remembered picking up her newborn sister when she was just three years old.
At that age, there was no calculation, no harm intended—only love, care, and curiosity.
But it wasn’t the three-year-old version of her that needed me to understand her good intentions.
It was the adult.
The version shaped by years of being misunderstood, corrected, sometimes unfairly judged.
When we receive feedback—whether in work, in relationships, or in moments of personal reflection—it doesn’t just touch what we did.
It touches what we meant.
And when our intention is questioned, it can feel like our worth is questioned, too.
The truth is:
We are never driven by only one motive.
Our intentions are mixed.
Alongside the pure desire to help, there might be self-interest.
Alongside genuine generosity, there might be a need to be needed.
Alongside love, there might be fear of being abandoned.
And none of that cancels out the good.
We are layered.
When we collapse into rigid thinking—“Either I’m good or I’m bad”—we lose everything.
We lose the human complexity that gives meaning to our growth.
We lose the grace to see ourselves as evolving, not failing.
Accepting mixed motives isn’t moral laziness.
It’s maturity.
It’s the deeper work of standing in the full, unsorted truth of who we are.
Growth doesn’t mean erasing every flawed thread from our hearts.
It means loving ourselves in the middle of the weaving.
Good intentions.
Mixed motives.
And the sacred, beautiful humanity in between.
Maybe the real work isn’t to purify ourselves until only goodness remains.
Maybe the real work is learning how to stay present with the complexity—
without judgment,
without collapse,
without giving up on the parts of ourselves still learning how to love better.
To recognize:
We are not here to be perfect.
We are here to be real.
And in that realness, there is room for every flawed, luminous thing we carry.
