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To the Good Ones…

To those who have shown the world they’re people of character,
Who have made mistakes along the way but bounced back and made things right,
To those who have convictions and stick to them,
To those who have read the right books and watched the right Netflix documentaries and made tangible changes to their daily habits because of them,
To those who believe the right things about friendship, family, god, sexuality, race, abortion, taxes, and climate change,
To those with a genuine passion for the important things and the discipline to keep the right priorities,
To those who know the world would be a better place if everyone were as educated, kind, respectful, and proactive as they are,
To those who know the world would be a better place if everyone else were a little more like them,

I hope it feels good…

I hope you sleep well at night.
I hope you fight to see the world become more like you envision it.
I hope your family and friends and professional associates respect and appreciate and admire you.
I hope your passion never dies.
I hope lots of people agree with you and give you many pats on the back.
I hope you gain many followers and that your posts get the likes they deserve.
I hope your friends finally listen to that podcast that changed your life.
I hope your perspective stays pure and worth fighting for, even when it’s difficult.

But if it doesn’t…

If you do something that shatters the respect of everyone you know,
If you change your mind about the thing you preached for years,
If you walk away from the cause because you’re burned out,
If you betray everything you stood for,
If you lose yourself,
If you spit in the faces of those who loved you,
If you lied to everyone’s face about who you are and what you were doing,

We’ll be here.

We won’t judge you.
We won’t say I told you so.
We won’t shame you and drag your name through the mud.
We won’t talk about how we would’ve done things differently.
We won’t ask, “How could you?”
We won’t pose condescending questions in a passive attempt to guide you back to the light.
We won’t laugh.
We won’t point our fingers.
We won’t use you as an object lesson about the problems with your philosophy. Or your generation. Or your gender. Or your skin color. Or your backstory.

Because we’ve been there.

And we’ve done it too.
And there are many of us.
And we know it hurts.
And we know you wish things were different.
And we know you can’t change the past.
And we know it’s hard to know how to move forward.
And we know you wish you had answers but you don’t.
And we know what it’s like to be scared of yourself. And hate yourself. And believe everyone would be better off without you.
And we know that even if the good ones are better off without you, we still want you.

And we need you.

Because we need to know we’re not alone.