Lauren Lejeune

I despise flying. The seats are uncomfortable, personal space is almost nonexistent and they are almost always too cold for my liking. The irony of this is I’ve gotten to fly around quite a lot, for pleasure and work. I was on a flight the other day back to Cody, ready to come home after a long week gone. Headphones in, I settled back into my seat, content to try and sleep the flight away. That is, until the person next to me started talking.

He was a young Brazilian who had gone to Northwest for a couple years before transferring to a different school, flying in to spend Thanksgiving with a friend. We carried on a conversation for quite some time, before he remarked that he had found it hard to meet people our age who could hold a real conversation that wasn’t surface level. We then fell down a deep and dark rabbit hole on what’s plaguing our generation — and I was left with more questions than I began with. 

Although technology has advanced our world, taking it to greater heights than anyone could imagine, it's also stifled our personal growth. Our ability to communicate online has hindered, in many ways, our ability to communicate face to face. A lot of young people find it easier to type a text out or send a photo of their face on snapchat with a short caption than to converse with the person sitting next to them. Real world connections are getting smaller, while our online circles continue to grow. Not only is this contributing to a generation of people who can’t speak to each other, it is promoting a world of superficial, face value individuals who don’t know how to go deeper than the surface.

During our conversation, I chalked this level of superficiality to a lack of real want or need, alongside social media. In American society, everything is one button away: Amazon, the Walmart app. You can drive to the store and pick up anything your heart desires. We don’t all have to farm for our food or worry about our education or the heat in our home or running water. I’m not saying some of these issues don’t exist here — but it's not the norm. I don’t think there’s anything I’ve ever really missed out on in my life — I’ve had it pretty good.

My new airplane acquaintance told me of a world of haves and have nots. One where kids only go to school so they can have a meal. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around, and a story that the majority of people in our country will never be able to relate to. 

As we make our way through this holiday season — and coming out of an insightful conversation — I am reminded once again of how much I have to be thankful for, of the ever growing blessings in my life.  Meeting someone who has worked so hard to achieve his goals, to start a life in a whole other country for the chance to build a better one for himself is one I can commend and only aspire to be.