In the February issue, Kristine Kwon wrote a brilliant article challenging all people young and old to do something, anything, to better our world. She shone a spotlight on the quite disturbing human reaction to horrible events. It is tragic that death and disaster have become so commonplace that we hardly pay attention to them before checking our Instagram feed or updating our Facebook status, as Kristine pointed out.

I get it that large numbers dehumanize the loss of life and make it almost foreign and unrelatable, but we have to remember that those numbers represent individuals – sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles – lost. Dictators like Bashar al-Assad and Kim Jong Un still, almost 300 years after the United States became a democracy, impose barbaric rule over the citizens they hold captive and we, the people of America, focus more on what level we get to in a game or how many “followers” we have, rather than the incomprehensible loss and suffering of the people we share this planet with.

So I thank you, Kristine, for doing your part, and I challenge all of you out there to do the same.