Silence at the Bus Stop
On our Sunday flight home after visiting a few colleges with Charlie and Jeff, I knew I had to knock out this month’s GFF blog. I assumed I would write about gratitude. It is November, after all, and our teen ambassadors are doing a gratitude challenge on Instagram.
I tried to type a few paragraphs out, but a worrisome image from our trip kept coming back to me. As we were leaving one of the campuses, we passed a bus stop where a group of students were waiting to head back to their dorms. It was a beautiful fall afternoon. The colors of the trees were bright. The air was crisp. It was a Friday, the kind of day where I expected to see students laughing, making weekend plans, and gathering in groups. Instead, the entire bus stop was silent.
About twenty young adults stood shoulder to shoulder and each was bent over a phone. One small group of three huddled around a screen. Everyone else stood alone. The stillness of it, the absence of connection, struck me. The silence was deafening.
I felt an ache in my chest.
For the last year and a half, since losing Owen, we have poured our hearts into The Goldfinch Foundation. We talk about the link between screens, isolation, and mental health. We create events where young people can show up as themselves and remember that joy, friendship, and belonging are not abstract ideas.
And yet, in that moment, the challenge felt enormous. It made me wonder, just for a moment: Is this problem just too big? Are we too late?
The answer is no of course, but the moment offered me clarity beyond the statistics that I share during one of my talks. We are in a cultural crisis. We, as a society or as individuals, cannot achieve sustainable wellness, without recognizing the importance of mental health and social connections. Technology is not going away, but we must acknowledge how it can negatively affect our health.
So this November, as we talk about gratitude, I will remember that gratitude is not only a feeling. It is a practice of showing appreciation, which requires us to notice. When we do, we can not only see that person who goes the extra mile for us, but we also notice who might need help.
Thus far, one week into the Instagram gratitude challenge, I have been struck by how many of our teen ambassadors have chosen to express gratitude for their relationships (friends, teachers, siblings), rather than things. It is a great reminder that we are making a difference- little by little- and I am not giving up just because this problem is big. Owen would expect nothing less.
