Raising children in this age is daunting, but I believe this generation can be the greatest generation that ever lived. Young adults have the world at their fingertips. Access to everything…and nothing…at the click of a button. With it comes great responsibility, and as many youth have told me enormous pressure.

How do you live beneath a gigantic magnifying glass? Where everything you do is on display? Where you use social media to live out your lives for approval and acceptance from people who pretend to be your friends and one wrong choice can derail your future.  Where no one and nothing is as it seems.

A bit like the Matrix. When did we buy into this lie, that who we are is not good enough? You are beautifully and wonderfully made. Believe that if you believe nothing else. You matter.

Know that if you are in a storm, it is a passing storm. That the long dark night will end. Or maybe you are standing on the edge of a cliff about to embark on an exciting new adventure, a dream you have held in your heart for a lifetime, and you hesitate. Don’t!

Just jump into the unknown. You don’t have to see the way to know it is there. It is, and maybe just maybe the world is waiting for you. For your idea or invention or creation.

No matter what. Keep going!

Ah, but the struggle is real. Of course it is. I’ve had a sword thrust threw my guts, taken great blows and groaned and sank back down. Stop “judging” yourself, mirroring everyone else, you are alive for a reason.

Let’s not be like the evil queen who peered endlessly at herself asking who the most beautiful of all was.

We are all beautiful.