Dear Miss Lonely Hearts

Dear Miss Lonely Hearts,

I am a Gen-Zer. I feel my life is empty and pointless. I don't have many friends. I am on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms, and the "friends" I have there seem to be leading amazing lives. I feel left out, lonely and depressed. Can you help me?

Atwitsend

Dear Atwitsend,

One thing I will tell you is that your situation is not unique. Many of your generation are in the same boat as you. Your "friends" who are leading amazing lives are probably living a life of quiet desperation just as you are. The social media posts are more a compensation for how their lives are, than a reflection of reality.

The problem is that we have lost the ability to connect as we once did. The internet, and especially the COVID lock-downs, have combined to create an environment where isolation is the norm rather than the exception. We as a society need to regain the ability to connect to our family and to our neighbors. It used to be that the people in a locality would know one another, talk to one another, look out for one another. In our modern society, that has been disappearing.

Our institutions are failing us. School used to be where people learned to connect, but rather than fostering that interaction, we grow more distant. Time was, we would interact, have face time with other students. Now we spend hours on our phones, on social media, talking to our "friends". We keep them at arms length as opposed to near at hand. Face to face relationships are hard, so much easier to communicate via our phones.

In life, relationships are hard. You get hurt. You think your world has come to an end. I will tell you. It hasn't. After the hurt, you need to pick yourself up and move on. Life is like that. For one of your tender years, it is hard, but as you get older, it gets easier to handle.

One thing I will warn you about are AI chatbots. They are useful tools but terrible "friends". They have no empathy, no soul. They are machines often echoing your own concerns. There is a young man who took his own life because his chatbot "friend" told him it was ok. It was not. These are not your friends because they don't know you. All they do is regurgitate what they get off the internet. There is a lot of good out there. There is a lot bad out there as well. You need to be careful.

We are pretty insignificant, until you consider that the God who created all of this, created it just for you

What about God? Some of your friends and teachers will probably tell you that religion is not cool. Well, religion, including some Christian religions are not all they are cracked up to be. They are man-made artifacts, another form of control. People will tell you that we are just an accident of nature, that we are pretty insignificant. When you think about it, we are pretty insignificant. We are a tiny speck on this great blue planet. Our planet is but a pebble in the solar system. Our solar system is one of billions in our galaxy, and our galaxy is one of billions in this vast universe.

We are pretty insignificant, until you consider that the God who created all of this, created it just for you. If all this did not exist, you would not exist. He gave loving parents and a safe home, just for you. He became a man, went to the cross, and died just for you. He did that so that you could come to know Him in an intimate way. He is waiting for you so that He can talk with you. As you come to know Him, He will reveal why you are here, what your purpose is in life and from purpose comes meaning. You will no longer have a meaningless existence, but you will have purpose and newness in life.

Like a loving parent, He is waiting for you to invite Him into your heart and into your life. When you do, He has some amazing things in store for you. I’d love to tell you that, from that point on, life will be easy, but I expect there will be bumps along the way. Life is like that, but now you will have someone you can depend on to see you through the storms of life.

I hope this has helped you.

Miss Lonely Hearts