I was recently posed the question: "If you lost everything tomorrow, whose arms would you run into to make everything okay?" My mom, my best friend and my boyfriend all play integral roles in helping me keep my life in check. As an external processor, I need people who I can trust with my entire being and who know me as intimately as I know myself, so when I was asked to choose one person to make everything okay, I stuttered. How can I pick just one person when those three people, and countless others, play role-specific characters in my life?

I don't want just one person to pick me up when my life comes crumbling down, and I personally think that this question undercuts the basis of community. Different people are equipped with different personalities that help me think through situations. My mother, for instance, asks the hard questions. She's great at listening, but she forces you to think through your own problem. Rachel, my best friend, will forever be my sounding board. All my outlandish ideas run through her; she's the piece of home I call out to when I need a quick fix of idea crunching. My boyfriend, on the other hand, is extremely empathetic and caring. Each person fulfills a different longing in my soul, and each is important to my functioning in society.

I feel that the question "If you lost everything tomorrow, whose arms would you run into to make everything ok?" doesn't do justice to a communal society. It creates an elitist mentality among friendships and then ranks them accordingly. Friendships, however, cannot be ranked. They can't be boxed or fully defined. I can't run to just one person when something tragic has happened nor do I think it's healthy. I need an entire community surrounding me. Each person influences my life differently and picks me up in unique ways.

The question, then, becomes irrelevant to the conversation. It's no longer who is the one person I go to when my life turns upside; rather, where is the community I have built to sustain me through the hard seasons in my life. Millennials are fantastic at picking ourselves up by the boot strings. We've convinced ourselves we don't need anyone to come along side us in the midst of trial. Or, if we finally reach a breaking point where we need another person, we only allow one person to breach the walls we've so carefully built.

Is this really what we're striving for? Do we really want this wall to ruin our chances for the best, fullest life? We need to alter the culture and allow ourselves to be vulnerable and safe with a plethora of people. The self-made man, which we've so carefully crafted into our souls, does not profit community, an atmosphere which we're meant for but have woefully ignored. We're meant to laugh together, and we're meant to grieve together. We're meant to band together and reach out and thrive. When millennials fail to do this, and when we fail to reach out to others and assume just one person can save us, we loose a sense of security. We waste away inside ourselves. It's a loss so painful, it's unrecognizable. It's lonely, and painful, and impersonal.

This needs to change. We need to change. We need to open up and become more vulnerable. More real. Only then can we begin to change the cancer inside our generation. A cancer of loneliness and rejection.