a letter to me, you, and whoever needs to hear it.

I want you to go all in on you.

I want you to stop setting deadlines on your goals and capstones on your achievements. I want you to stop thinking failure is a dead end. I want you to appreciate obstacles and fall in love with the prospect of a new path—pave your own way.

I want you to see you how I see you. I want you to stop picking apart your looks, your fears, your failures. I want you to not meet reality with self-destruction. I want you to talk to yourself like you talk to the ones you love. I want you to bring yourself up. I want you to be your greatest cheerleader. I want you to stop creating weaknesses where I see strength. I want you to give yourself leniency when you’re mind and body demand, but I also want you to understand stress is a tool for growth—appreciate stress.

Dive into the chaos of stress.

Your growth is a muscle, it must be worked, it must be loaded. Pay attention to your mind—your form. Drop something when you lose esteem, gain with confidence. Only you can decide what is too much for you to handle.

I want you to stop standing in your own way.

I want you to know it’s okay to take time. Take the time to ask yourself what you want and where you want to go, but don’t spiral in time. LIVE. Once you decide, go make it happen. And if you can’t decide, make decisions in the now. Live in the now with a prospect of the future.

I want you to know life outside of a television screen and outside of four walls. That news—agenda biased. That discovery show—you can’t exert yourself hiking trails while sitting on a couch. That popular sitcom—not real people.

Breathe fresh air. Take it all in. I want you to close your eyes and take time to breathe. I want you to know you can.

You CAN.

YOU can.

I want you to stop settling. For shitty people, shitty jobs, shitty food, shitty books, shitty days. I want you to wake up in love with the prospect that you have one more day. I want you to move on. I want you to love yourself more. I want you to choose you. I want you to love yourself enough to walk away. Have the strength to remove the toxic people from your life, to let the people who don’t belong only get a viewer’s seat from the sideline, to show them you are more than their negativities. Have the confidence to quit your job if it’s not growing you or pushing you; and working for management who doesn’t respect you.

I want you to fight for a life you love living.

I want to see you THRIVE not survive.

I want you to love yourself like someone you love.