We Should Not Be Friends

You know I say this to them all the time, but the problem with how we raise so many of the young people in the U.S., especially the privileged ones, is that we don’t ask enough of them. We don’t give them any sense of how much they have to offer others.

I thought of the need so many of us have to lionize the people in our lives, introducing them to others by what they do and not who they are. If our friends do amazing things with their lives, it’s as if that makes us amazing, too. Reflected glory. Why isn’t it enough that our friends are just our friends?