Love is easy when people are nice. It’s effortless when your neighbors mow their lawn, your boss gives you a surprise bonus, and your kids actually listen the first time you ask them to put their shoes away. But what happens when people are difficult? What do you do with the person who actively tries to ruin your reputation or the guy who cuts you off in traffic and then has the audacity to flip you off? This is the messy, uncomfortable, and borderline frustrating territory of Everybody Always by Bob Goff.
Bob Goff isn't your typical "self-help" guru. He doesn’t have a polished five-step program for spiritual enlightenment. Instead, he’s a lawyer who once served as the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Uganda and has a habit of giving out his actual cell phone number in the back of his books. He’s a guy who buys a lodge in Canada just to host people and thinks the best way to learn about love is to fail at it repeatedly until you get a little bit better.
The Problem with Loving the "Easy" People
Most of us spend our lives curated. We pick our friends based on shared interests, political alignments, and similar tax brackets. We create these little bubbles where everyone agrees with us. It feels good. It’s safe. But in Everybody Always, Bob Goff argues that this isn't really love—it's just a sophisticated form of narcissism. If we only love people who are exactly like us, we’re basically just loving ourselves reflected in others.
The core premise of the book is jarringly simple: Love everybody, always. No exceptions. No "unless they’re a jerk" clauses. No "provided they apologize first" fine print.
He tells this story about a guy named Walter who was, by all accounts, a nightmare. Walter was a neighbor who was grumpy, litigious, and generally unpleasant to be around. Most people would—and did—avoid him. Bob decided to do the opposite. He decided to become Walter’s best friend, not because Walter deserved it, but because Bob wanted to become the kind of person who loved people regardless of whether they deserved it. It took years. It wasn't a "movie moment" where Walter suddenly became a saint. It was a long, slow, often annoying process of showing up.
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Why We Struggle with the "Always" Part
Let’s be honest. "Always" is a terrifying word. It implies a lack of boundaries that makes most modern psychologists cringe. We live in the era of "protecting your peace" and "cutting out toxic people." While those concepts have their place in preventing abuse, Goff suggests we’ve used them as an excuse to stop being kind to anyone who inconveniences us.
Becoming love is different than just doing loving things.
Think about it this way. If you’re a bucket of water and someone bumps into you, water spills out. If you’re a bucket of red paint and someone bumps into you, red paint spills out. You don't get to choose what spills out in the moment of impact; that was decided by what you put in the bucket beforehand. Everybody Always is about changing what’s in the bucket. It’s about becoming so saturated with the idea of grace that when someone "bumps" into you by being rude or cruel, what spills out is kindness. It sounds crazy. It feels impossible. But Goff insists it’s the only way to actually change the world.
The Creepy People and the Difficult Ones
Goff has a whole chapter about "loving the creepy people." He’s not talking about dangerous people—he’s very clear about safety—but he’s talking about the marginalized, the weird, the ones who make us feel socially awkward.
- The person at the office who talks too much.
- The neighbor with the junk in their yard.
- The person whose political views make your blood boil.
He argues that these people are actually our "finishers." In marathon running, a finisher helps you get across the line. In the school of love, these difficult people are the ones who help us graduate from "polite" to "transformative."
It’s Not About Being a Doormat
A common misconception about Everybody Always by Bob Goff is that he’s advocating for being a doormat. People think he’s saying you should let everyone walk all over you. That’s not it. Goff is a lawyer; he understands justice and boundaries better than most.
The distinction he makes is between agreement and love.
You don't have to agree with someone to love them. You don't even have to like their behavior. Love, in the Goffian sense, is a verb. It’s an active choice to seek the best for another person, even if that "best" involves holding them accountable or saying no. But the posture is always one of invitation, not exclusion. He talks about "landing the plane." As a pilot, he knows that if you're coming in for a landing, you need a clear runway. If our lives are cluttered with bitterness and "no trespassing" signs, nobody can land. No one can get close enough to be changed by us, and we can't be changed by them.
Finding Your "Green Light"
In the book, Bob uses the metaphor of green lights. We spend so much of our lives waiting for permission. We wait for a sign, or a feeling, or a perfectly drafted plan.
He tells a story about how he wanted to help kids in witch doctor camps in Uganda. He didn't wait for a government grant or a massive non-profit to back him. He just went. He started a school. He treated it like a "green light" situation. Most of us are living in a permanent "yellow light" state, cautiously tapping the brakes, wondering if we should be nice to that person or if we should get involved in that cause.
Goff’s advice? Just go. Fail. Make a mess. It’s better to be a "fail-er" who tried to love people than a "success" who stayed home and stayed cynical.
The Theology of Audacity
While the book is rooted in Christian faith, it’s remarkably devoid of "churchy" language. Goff isn't interested in religious debates. He’s interested in Jesus, specifically the version of Jesus who hung out with the people the religious elite hated.
He points out that Jesus didn't spend a lot of time "investigating" people to see if they were worthy of a miracle. He just healed them. He didn't give a background check to the woman at the well. He just talked to her. This "theology of audacity" is what makes Everybody Always so disruptive. It throws out the meritocracy of kindness.
We often think:
- Is this person "good"?
- Do they deserve my time?
- Will they appreciate it?
Goff says these are the wrong questions. The only question is: "Am I becoming more like love?"
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Real World Application: The "Office" Test
Imagine you have a coworker—let's call him Steve. Steve takes credit for your work. Steve smells like old ham. Steve hums loudly while you’re trying to focus.
The "Everybody Always" approach isn't to just "put up" with Steve. It’s to find a way to extravagantly love Steve. Maybe that’s buying him lunch. Maybe it’s genuinely asking about his life and listening to the answer. It’s not about changing Steve. Steve might always smell like ham. It’s about changing you so that Steve’s "Steve-ness" no longer has the power to steal your joy.
It’s about losing your "pride of authorship" over your own life. When we stop trying to control how people perceive us or how they respond to us, we become dangerously free. We can love people because we want to, not because we need something back from them.
The Secret of the "Lighthouse"
Goff mentions that lighthouses don't fire cannons to call attention to themselves. They just shine.
A lot of our attempts at being "good people" are actually just us firing cannons. We want people to notice our virtue. We want to be thanked. We want the "likes" on social media. But true love, the kind that Bob talks about, is quiet. It’s the guy who shows up with a chainsaw after a storm and clears a neighbor’s driveway without leaving a note. It’s the person who keeps a secret that would make them look good if they told it, just to protect someone else's dignity.
Critical Takeaways for a "Goff-Style" Life
If you actually want to implement the themes of Everybody Always, you have to stop reading and start doing. Here is how that looks in practice, minus the fluff.
- Audit your "Difficult" List. Who are the three people you avoid most? Don't pray for them from a distance. Figure out a way to do something kind for them this week. Not a "preachy" kind thing. A real, practical, "I see you as a human" kind thing.
- The 30-Second Rule. Bob is big on immediate action. If you have an impulse to be kind, do it in thirty seconds or you’ll talk yourself out of it. Send the text. Write the check. Make the call.
- Quit Something. Bob famously quits something every Thursday. Why? To make room for something new. We are often too "full" of our own schedules to have room for "everybody." If your calendar is booked solid, you have no margin for the "always" part of the equation.
- Embrace the "Un-Fancy." Love doesn't require a gala. It requires a porch. It’s about being accessible. Make yourself more available to the people who can do nothing for you.
Why This Message Matters in 2026
We are more polarized than ever. We have "cancel culture" on one side and "outrage culture" on the other. Everyone is hunkered down in their digital trenches, throwing grenades at the "other side."
In this climate, Everybody Always by Bob Goff isn't just a nice book of stories. It’s a radical political and social manifesto. If we actually started loving the people we currently "other," the entire system of division would collapse. It’s hard to hate someone when you’re busy figuring out how to bake them a cake or help them fix their fence.
It’s not about being naive. It’s about being brave. It takes zero courage to hate someone who hates you. It takes massive, hulking, incredible courage to look at someone who despises you and say, "I’m going to love you anyway, and there’s nothing you can do about it."
Practical Next Steps
Stop looking for a "better" version of this message. You don't need another book. You don't need another podcast.
- Identify your "Walter." That one person who makes your skin crawl or your heart race with anxiety.
- Take one "creepy" step. Approach someone you usually overlook. The janitor, the quiet person at the back of the room, the person who looks like they’re having a bad year.
- Give away your "power." Whether that’s your time, your money, or your "right" to be right.
Bob Goff’s life is a testament to the fact that when you stop trying to be "right" and start trying to be "love," life gets a lot more whimsical and a lot more meaningful. It won't be easy. It will be messy. You will probably get taken advantage of at some point. But as Bob would say, you'll have some great stories to tell at the end of it.
Go be love. Always.