What the world needs next year is not something that be wrapped up in bows and ribbons and placed in a box.

What the world needs next year is not something with a price tag attached.

What the world needs next year is not something applicable to one day, one holiday, one people, one nation.

What the world needs next year is hope.

What the world needs next year is empathy for all people--even the people we cannot understand, the people whose opinions we detest, the people who we cannot comprehend finding common ground with.

What the world needs next year is reactionary people. People who extend their life's missions beyond monotonous hashtags and shared posts. People who talk the talk AND walk the walk, believing that social activism is more than a quest for favorites.

What the world needs next year is people getting outside of their comfort zones, interacting with individuals and cultures and experiences unlike their own.

What the world needs next year is less talking, more listening. Less shouting, more comprising. Less violence, more peace talks.

What the world needs next year is not only looking toward national leaders, but ourselves. What it needs is for people to own their beliefs, take control of their leadership, and make waves in their own immediate communities.

What the world needs next year is finding strength in the power of our voices and our writing, striving to make our words and our visions our most powerful weapons.

What the world needs next year is a little less ethnocentrism, a little less apathy, a little less entitlement.

What the world needs next year is to view all human life as sacred, not as political pawns and talking points.

What the world needs next year is hope.

And lots of it.