What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen

by Kate Fagan

nothing turns enjoyment into dread faster than obligation.

Recognize that empathy might be in short supply. Educate yourself about mental health. And consider the idea that not every struggling teammate is weak.

She refers also to evidence that the pursuit of extrinsic goals at the expense of intrinsic goals correlates with anxiety and depression. It seems reasonable that this would be true.

Instead of having one or two true friends that we can sit and talk to for three hours at a time, we have 968 “friends” that we never actually talk to; instead we just bounce one-line messages off them a hundred times a day. This is not friendship, this is distraction.

One of the trickiest parts of social media is recognizing that everyone is doing the same thing you’re doing: presenting their best self. Everyone is now a brand, and all of digital life is a fashion magazine.

Comparing your everyday existence to someone else’s highlight reel is dangerous for both of you.

“The point is not what you do but why you do it, how you choose it… I understand that parents are worried about their children’s future. But we have to look at what we’re doing to our kids. We have to have the strength to raise them to care about something other than ‘success’ in the very narrow terms in which it’s come to be defined. I’m not saying you can have it all: In fact, that’s one of my biggest messages in the book. You have to choose. Parents already tell their kids to ‘do what you love’ and ‘follow your dreams.’ But kids know that they don’t really mean it, that what they really want is status and success. Well, we have to really mean

Notice how close perfection is to despair.

Anticipation allows us to be in two different moments at once. But it is often a zero-sum game: we steal from one to fuel the other.