Let’s start with a simple story about responding rather than reacting, shared by a younger student in one of my courses. We were discussing unpleasant events, and Michael, a fourth grader at a low-income school, reported that his new cat had bitten him, that it hurt, and that he’d wanted to hit the cat. I asked, “Did you?” He smiled and simply said, “No. But I almost did.” As a class, we dubbed this an almost moment.
For the remaining five weeks of the course, we explored other almost moments—at home, at school, and in life—not hitting the cat at home or the bully on the playground, hanging in there with a difficult math problem or after a disagreement with a friend, and so on. As a teenager, you may face more challenging almost moments: choosing not to cheat to get a better grade, not to use drugs, not to have unprotected sex, not to get in the car with a drunk friend, not to join a gang, or maybe even choosing not to stand in front of a high-speed train.
Maybe some of these examples seem dramatic, or maybe one or more of them feel all too familiar. All of them come from teens I’ve worked with. Tragically, in 2010 in Palo Alto, the university town just south of where I live, over the course of six months, six teenagers took their lives by standing in front of high-speed trains. Each was probably grappling with extreme feelings of depression and suicidal thoughts like My life is hopeless, I’d be better off dead, or No one cares (Unkind Mind on steroids). How different might things have been if even one of these teens had learned to explore his or her thoughts and feelings with the curiosity, perspective, and kindness that Michael expressed in his almost moment. We can never know what would have happened. But perhaps they would still be here today, and if someone were to ask them, “Did you stand in front of the train?” they would smile and simply say, “No. But I almost did.”
It may be surprising to realize that your life could literally depend on developing the ability to choose wisely and take a different street in the intense almost moments, when things feel unbearably difficult.