❤️My dear children,
By the time you read this letter, you will already be here with me. There is something I want you to know: I loved you long before I ever met you.
I did not love you because I knew what you would become, or because I imagined you would one day be extraordinary, brilliant, or accomplished.
I loved you simply because you were you.
Even before you entered this world, I had already made a tender place for you in my heart.
It was a place filled with hope, with imagination, with blessing, and with a reverence for life so deep that words can barely hold it.
One day, you may come to understand that your mother has not lived a simple life.
I have spent much of it asking difficult questions: why the world is arranged the way it is, why some people are seen while others are overlooked, why kindness is sometimes answered with misunderstanding, and why the things that matter most are often the hardest to reach.
I have also chosen, again and again, to do things that others might consider too difficult, too exhausting, or not worth the cost.
Not because I was born loving hardship, but because I have always believed that if a person can bring even a little more fairness, gentleness, and dignity into the world, then that little is worth everything it asks of them.
So if, one day, you notice that I take many things seriously, and that I hold tightly to the meaning of kindness, please know that it is not because I want to raise you into perfect people.
It is because I know all too well that the world does not always reward goodness fairly.
And so I hope that as you grow, you will carry both kindness and edge, both compassion and boundaries, both the courage to love and the wisdom to protect yourselves.
I want you to know that you do not need to become anyone else’s idea of the right answer.
You do not need to grow into the neatest, easiest, most acceptable version of a life.
You may be sensitive. You may be unusual. You may take longer than others. You may wander. You may need years to understand who you truly are.
That is all right.
As long as you do not abandon honesty with yourselves, and as long as you do not lose your conscience in the middle of confusion, you are already doing better than you think.
The world will be wide.
It will offer you possibility, and it will also bring you disappointment.
It will surprise you, and it will wound you.
You will meet people who love you, and people who do not understand you at all.
There will be seasons when you feel radiant, and nights when you question whether you are enough.
This, too, is part of being human.
Life has never been a straight road, and growing up has never meant winning all the time.
What matters most is not that you never fall, but that after falling, you still keep the ability to rise, to trust, and to love again.
If one day you feel different from others, do not be too quick to fear it.
Some of the most alive people in this world were never meant to grow from a template.
And if one day you are tired, deeply tired, please do not force yourselves to keep pretending to be strong.
Rest is not weakness.
Asking for help is not failure.
I hope you will learn that the greatest strength a person can have is not the ability to be unbreakable, but the courage to admit their vulnerability and still refuse to abandon themselves.
I also want to apologize to you in advance.
I am not God, and I will not be a flawless mother.
There will be days when I am tired, days when I misunderstand, days when I say the wrong thing or fail to say the right one in time.
There may be moments when I am too busy, too worried, or simply too human to love you as gracefully as I wish I could.
But please believe me when I say that I will keep trying.
I will keep learning, correcting, softening, and growing.
Because love is not an instinct that arrives complete.
Love is also a discipline, an art, and a practice — one shaped by sincerity, patience, humility, and reflection.
And for you, I will keep practicing.
One day, you may ask me what kind of people I hope you will become.
I have thought about that for a long time, and my answer is actually very simple.
I hope you will learn to think for yourselves, and not be too easily tamed by the world’s ready-made answers.
I hope you will be able to understand the pain of others, without turning your own kindness into a doorway through which people can endlessly take from you.
I hope you will be clear-eyed about reality, but not so hardened by it that you lose your ideals.
And more than anything, I hope you will understand that true strength is not just about winning, impressing, or surpassing others.
True strength is what remains when a person has seen complexity, limitation, cost, and the contradictions of human nature, and still chooses not to become cruel.
If anyone ever makes you feel that you must be more accomplished, more obedient, or more successful before you are worthy of love, do not believe them.
I want one of the first truths you learn from me to be this:
Love is not a reward.
It is not a prize given only when you perform well.
It is not a permission slip handed to you once you have proved yourself.
Love is something that belongs to you already.
And yes, I do hope you will have ambition.
But not the kind that tramples others in order to rise.
I hope for the kind of ambition that refuses to live carelessly, that wants to meet the world fully, to meet other people honestly, and to meet the self bravely.
I hope you will have the strength to choose your own lives rather than merely accepting the lives handed to you.
I hope you will understand that money matters, achievement matters, and security matters too — but beneath all of those things, what matters even more is whether you have an inner compass, whether your soul knows where it stands.
You do not need to become famous.
But I hope you will become people who can stand firmly within yourselves.
There is something else I want you to know.
You do not owe me perfection.
You do not exist to validate my life.
You are not my project, not my proof, not my medal, and not an extension of my worth.
You are your own lives, your own souls, your own becoming.
I do not love you so that I can shape you into my image.
I love you so that I can walk beside you as you grow into your own.
And if one day you are hurt, or lost, or ashamed, or deeply tangled in mistakes — if life ever becomes messy in ways you do not know how to fix — please remember that you can come home.
Home should not only be a place of rules, explanations, or correction.
Home should also be a place that catches you when you are too tired to hold yourselves together.
I may not be able to solve every problem for you, but I hope I can give you at least this: the certainty that in this world, there will always be someone willing to sit with you, listen to you, and hear your whole heart before asking you to be stronger.
And so, my dear children:
May you have freedom, and also wisdom.
May you have sharpness, and also mercy.
May you have ambition, and also restful nights.
May you keep a little innocence even after you have seen how complicated the world can be.
May you continue to believe in love, even after loss.
May you learn early to respect yourselves, and may you never too easily betray your own hearts.
As your mother, I may not be able to shield you from every storm.
But I hope I can place something enduring inside you —
the quiet strength of knowing you were deeply loved, and the unshakable belief that even when the world is not always gentle, you are still worthy of a life filled with meaning, dignity, and love.
Before you have truly arrived in my arms,
I leave this letter here for you.
Let it be a kind of evidence:
evidence that you were awaited with love,
and evidence that somewhere in this world, there was a woman who loved you sincerely before she had ever even become your mother.
Always loving you,
Mom❤️
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About the Me:
Dr. Yujia Zhu 朱羽佳 (Ph.D in Psychology) is a visionary changemaker and the trailblazing founder of For A Safer Space (FASS) — the world’s first fully AI-driven nonprofit organization — and the solo creator of FASSLING.AI — the world’s first fully AI-driven nonprofit platform with a virtual safe space providing unlimited, free emotional and life coaching services globally. A proud Chinese Canadian originally from the historic city of Nanjing, Mainland China, Yujia’s journey fuses technical innovation with compassionate activism, offering a bold blueprint for the future of socially responsible leadership.
With almost 15 years of experience in the humanitarian sector, Yujia is widely recognized as a bold social innovator, ethical systems thinker, and fearless advocate for restorative justice and inclusive service design. Her work has impacted millions through anti-oppressive storytelling, transformative holistic education, and visionary platforms that reimagine human care in the digital age.
Yujia’s work has earned her recognition as a thought leader in the nonprofit and philanthropy sector, including her appointment to the Forbes Nonprofit Council and her service on the board of Community Boards, the longest-running mediation, conflict resolution, and restorative justice center in the United States. She has also earned herself recognition as an established science-based thought leader in the coaching sector when she was invited to join the most prestigious professional fellow membership at the Institute of Coaching (IOC), based at McLean Hospital, a member of Mass General Brigham and the largest psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Dr. Yujia Zhu also won the prestigious Grand Stevie Award for Women in Business and is a 13x Stevie Award Winner.
A rare blend of heart, intellect, and courage, Dr. Yujia Zhu exemplifies what it means to lead with both purpose and precision. Her life’s work is dedicated to building a more compassionate, equitable, and sustainable world — one bold, effective innovation at a time.
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I’d be glad to connect on LinkedIn if you’re interested in following my journey as a social entrepreneur.
Feel free to read my leadership and management articles about social entrepreneurship on forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesnonprofitcouncil/people/yujiazhu/
Feel free to read my self-help and emotional regulation articles about social entrepreneurship on Brainz Magazine: https://www.brainzmagazine.com/executive-contributor/yujia-zhu
Feel free to checkout my new book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0bvnT2TD
Feel Free to Follow me on Instagram, and visit my social enterprise website for more info!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Christian Harb On Unsplash
