Taken with an IPhone 6s

In the new year, I hope you learn to walk away from what is not meant to be yours. In the new year, I hope you learn to walk away from anyone who is not good for you. I hope you let them go with grace, dignity, and lightness, watching them fade into the backdrop of your life as you open your hands and your heart to someone new, someone better for you, someone who is meant for you. In the new year, I hope you learn to walk away from the toxic ideas you’ve held about yourself. I hope you learn to look at the person in the mirror with the same love you’re giving everyone else. I hope you learn to treat yourself with respect and kindness, forgetting about the people taught you that you deserved any different. In the new year, I hope you learn to walk away from expectations that you have no interest in fulfilling. I hope you learn to reject a life that is not made by you, for you. I hope you learn to dismiss the opinions of those who do not have your best interests in mind. I hope you learn to tune out the endless loop of society’s ideas of what you should be and what you should do and I hope you make up your mind about who you are, on your own terms. But most of all, in the new year, I hope you learn to run towards what lights your heart on fire. I hope you grab onto the people who make you see this world differently, in a better, more positive light. I hope you hold them and love them with all you have. I hope you allow them to do the same to you. I hope you find songs and ideas and art that make you feel glad to be alive, right here, right now, so you were able to experience them by existing at just the right moment. I hope you find passion in everyday life and I hope you find adventure where you least expect it. I hope you let passion and hard work and kindness be the guideposts of your life. But most of all — I hope you live. I hope you live. It’s truly as simple as that.

- Molly Burford