Have You Thought Lately

My junior year in high school I vividly remember rushing to my first class and almost being knocked over by another student. Immediately I looked up and was furious, she didn't even say excuse me she just kept walking. My books flew everywhere and on top of that I was now late for class. Later, I learned that this young lady's name was Lilly. Lilly was about 5'6”, African American, and had long black hair. After Lilly bumped into me, I began to notice her more and more around school. I noticed that she was always alone, and always seemed sad, but I didn't care, she bumped into me and I thought it was rude and inconsiderate. About half way through the school year Administration sent an email out to all the parents saying that a student tried to commit suicide during school hours and alerted them that there would be a short news feed discussing the incident, it was Lilly. See, what I didn't I know about Lilly was that her father was an abusive drug addict, her mother was struggling to keep the house up and put her other two brothers through school, and Lilly was struggling with her sexuality. In David Foster Wallace's, This Is Water, he talks about our default setting as being extreme self-centeredness. He states, “Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence” (Wallace, 2009,