YWP: ‘The Little Things’

[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.

Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.

YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.

If even as adults our thoughts are easily mired in the quicksand of social media, the tendency toward this distraction is more prevalent still in children and teens. Burlington poet PawThoKa Mae speaks out to this phenomenon this week in “The Little Things,” urging us to pause, breathe, and experience life outside of the virtual world.

The Little Things

By PawThoKa Mae, 13

[I]n our society, we’re consumed
by the number of likes we receive.
It’s assumed if you don’t have
pages and pages of friends,
then you’re lonely.
But only, this media we call social
is anything but,
driving us further and further
away from communication.
Take a break from your phone
to appreciate the life around you.
Don’t let it slip away.
Don’t let social media control you.
Look at the beautiful trees
that surround you,
listen to the spectacular sounds
that are around you.
Appreciate the little things in life,
even the simplest of them all.
Maybe someone says, “Hi.”
Maybe someone says, “Bye.”
Maybe someone holds the door,
or maybe someone does something more.
Don’t ignore these little things in life.
Because in our society,
we will not be consumed
by the number of likes we receive.