And I start thinking about, um, what your lives are like, I just can’t help it, like when I go online and I talk to you, or I just look at your pictures and see what, how you were getting ready for the concert, or something, um, it really makes me wonder what your life is like, and I can’t help but think about the fact that in 2015, um, it is, you got so many things that you could decide you want to be like. And that’s one of the best things about 2015. You can go online, you can be inspired, you have all this information readily available to you. You could be this or that or this or that, you can have so many dreams that you want to fulfill, and that’s my favorite thing about the internet, about 2015, I love that part of it. And I love being able to keep up with you. But then there’s a little bit of, there’s a little bit of the internet in 2015 that scares me because just as readily available as the good information is, like, the inspiring information, there’s also a lot of room for people to criticize you for doing anything at all, or for just existing, um, where there are a lot of messages being fed to you about what, like, you shouldn’t be, or how you shouldn’t look, or how you shouldn’t act or shouldn’t talk and you shouldn’t live your life, what’s not cool. And um, when I look at 15,000 of you all together, and you’re so generous and so loving and you’ve been so welcoming to me in your town, I just, I see those qualities in you, where you’re dancing without caring what anybody says, you’re screaming the words to songs, you’re making friends with the people next to you. Those are such beautiful qualities, you’re being so loving and open and vulnerable and sweet. And I don’t ever want cynical people to make you feel like those qualities in yourself are bad, okay? Just never let it happen. Because what happens when you are welcoming, open, trusting, loving, here’s what’s going to happen to you. You are going to make a lot of mistakes, and that’s inevitable, it’s not bad. And when you do make mistakes in your life, I don’t want you to look in the mirror and only see those mistakes. I don’t want you to look in the mirror and see it like it’s written all over you, all the things you did or said wrong in your life because that’s not how it works. Would you like for me to tell you how I think it works? I think it works like this: You are not the opinion of somebody who doesn’t know you. You are not damaged goods if you have made mistakes in your life. And you are not going nowhere just because you haven’t gotten where you want to go yet. The way I think it works is that you are brave and wiser and stronger and smarter because you took the risks that it takes to trust people, to be open, to be loving and to make mistakes. And maybe people will hurt you, maybe people will take advantage of you, maybe you’ll get betrayed more than the cynical people, but I think your life will be so much more beautiful if you stay open and you stay loving. So the way that you treated me tonight, Columbus, Ohio, welcoming me with open arms, please treat your friends like that, treat strangers like that, and most of all, treat yourself like that please. This is a song I wrote about kind of waking up and realizing that you’re not your mistakes and that time can heal a lot of things and, um, one day you don’t look in the mirror and see the mistakes you’ve made written all over you anymore. One day, if you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you look in the mirror and all of a sudden, you’re clean. -Taylor Swift
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