Be Good

Be good, little one.




I don't have many dreams for you. I'm careful not to theorize too much about your future because I want you to have the space to dream for yourself and to feel safe telling me what gives you life and hope and passion. I dream of you being happy and my wish is that you will never suffer. I'm constantly reminding myself that this is a pipe dream and preparing myself to cry with you when life starts to hurt. 

There is just one other, big dream I have for you; one thing that I desperately want for your life. I want you to be good. Not morally perfect (that's impossible anyways), but good in your core, possessing a kind heart and caring more about others than yourself. This doesn't mean you won't fuck up. It doesn't mean you won't hurt other people. In fact, you're human so your goodness won't even be consistent. You'll make the wrong choice at least as often as you make the right one and I will love you fiercely through it all. But may your heart be good and big and open. May you respect the humans around you enough to treat them with compassion and dignity even on your bad days. May you be brave and humble enough to say, "I'm sorry" when you don't. May you refuse to bully, harass, assault, or otherwise damage the people around you or to join in when your friends all think these behaviors are funny. May you stand with the hurting and have empathy for all the people who don't have the advantage that you do of being a white, middle-class, male in a country that values those inherent qualities above all others. May you be vulnerable and feeling and know that emotion is not weakness. Being who you really are and feeling what you really feel makes you brave. May you love animals and treat them well because they are helpless and you are not. May you heal your own pain rather than forcing others to taste it. May you encourage and lift up and spread joy and be real.

Be an artist, a writer, a husband and father or a single gay man, a barista, a stoner or a teetotaler, a mathematician, a republican, a democrat, or a socialist, a monk or a drag queen, a vegan or a hunter, a body-builder, a teacher; be whoever you are and whoever you want to be and I will love every part of you. But please, whoever you choose to be, be good.

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