The Catalyst

By Brianna Hoskins, Reporter

High school is much too brutal of a place to survive alone, so why do we feel the need to be so awfully critical of each other? You’d think after all the stories, the published diaries, or the high school obituaries, we would relate these tragedies to our own lives and try to prevent them.

But day after day, we continue to laugh at those different from us, drop the door if someone behind us ‘isn’t worth our courtesy’ and openly stare at others. According to friendshospitalonline.org there are 5,000 teenagers who commit suicide each year. What if you, by taking just one moment to reach out to someone you would usually overlook, could stop one of these deaths or help someone’s day to just be a little better? This epidemic hits everyone, not just people in, big, faraway towns. But here at home, there are hurting people all around us. We just don’t take time to notice.

What about the quiet, sad-looking girl that sits a few seats away in your math class, or the lone boy who sits against the wall during lunch? Do you ever wonder what they’re thinking, if they choose to be alone or if other people have decided that fate for them? Sure, there are people who choose and enjoy their solitude, but what about the others who you glance at in the halls and instead of pretending that they don’t see you staring, they smile at you and your gawking. We would expect them to look away, or at least pretend they don’t see us, but they act friendly. It would take much less effort to smile back than to avert your eyes, embarrassed that someone had noticed your ogling.

If you were told that the world was ending in six months, wouldn’t you want to live that time to the fullest, take every small instinct you had? Have you ever had that small thought in the back of your head that “hey maybe I should join that girl, she looks lonely.” Like so many other things we ignore this small flicker. Hell, we could all die tomorrow and not be living the life that we could, or be helping the people that need us. Why don’t we just take these gut feelings and run with them? You can never know what someone is thinking until you ask them. You don’t know what background they come from or, what they live through everyday. We can never know how much we effect someone until it’s too late.

We all have days when we are much more fragile, and it doesn’t take much to set us off. However, we also have those days when it just takes a few kind gestures to get out of our rut. You can never know how that stranger is feeling or how your smile or alienation could affect them. You never know if years from now you’ll be picking through the grocery store and a long forgotten face will come to thank you for your kindness on what, for them, was a very fragile day. For all you know, you could have saved someone’s life. Unquestionably we can all look back and remember a day that would have thoroughly sucked “if it weren’t for…”

We never let on to those that had brightened our day, for that would just show how human we really are. Instead we hold it to ourselves and are grateful for their act. However, the ultimate way of thanking them would be to pass it on. Give someone else that glimmer you were presented, pass on that power of a smile, and never have to wonder “what if I had just reached out.”