Nothing great is ever done alone.

This is an post to remind you all, and to remind myself, that I'm alive. And so are you.

This seems like it would be a given, but honestly, it's so easy to forget. To forget that you're living a life that's just as great and important and beautiful as all of the other lives you see around you. It's just harder to see your own life and your own actions in the same way you see the lives of others.

This is a thank you note. This is to say that I love you. This is to tell you to step outside, however cold it is, take a deep breath, and breathe out a dream, or a wish, or a prayer. And this is to encourage you to take that wish and own it, and to make it happen. Wishes and prayers are powerful things, but they're all the more powerful when you put your own strength behind them.

I think sometimes it's easy to look at the world around us and assume there isn't much we can do—this person is stronger than us, that person is better than us, these people have more charm or talent or skill or a better reputation than we do. But here's the thing: there's always going to be someone better in our own eyes. The trick isn't to be better than the people around you, but to do better with the people around you.

Nothing great is ever achieved alone. Unite with the people you love, and you'll be surprised at how much easier life can be. That's the point of having friends and allies, you know? So that they can life you up when you fall, and you can help do the same thing for them. And I think sometimes we, as young people, forget that. To us, friends sometimes become the people to hang with in the hallways and crack jokes with. We stop seeing them as people as full of life and depth and experiences as we are.

Here's a challenge for you, whoever happens to actually read this rambling of mine: take a second look at the people who are close to you and, as the great John Green says, imagine them complexly. Look at the people you love and realize that they have the same capacity for love and pain and happiness and hopes and dreams and fears that you do.

And then just love them.

Remember that wish I told you to make? Keep it. Tie it to your finger with a string. Don't let yourself forget it. Turn it over in your mind until you know it upside down and backwards.

Then turn to those complexly-imagined people that you love, and say to them, “There's this thing I want to do. Can you help me?”

And I bet you I know what they'll say back.

Just try it.

I dare you.

Believe in Dreams | Remember to Live EP | Flyleaf