Recently, I got the opportunity to sit through an awards ceremony that G was invited to participate in, and, aside from the fact that it was short, to the point, and over in a reasonable amount of time, it gave me a lot to think about.

Each recipient had the opportunity to answer one of a series of questions. Interestingly enough, almost all of them chose to comment on their future plans.

Even more interesting to me was that there were two common themes that ran through the choices: one was making the world a better place for future generations and the other was choosing a career because of a direct impact that had been made on their lives due to someone in that field.

Most of those who were following a path in the medical field cited their own personal illnesses, injuries or a family member who had received life-changing care.

Conscious of how that care had impacted them, these students hoped to follow careers and one day be able to help people like they had been helped.

G chose the other route. His goal is to study environmental engineering, but with the goal of helping humans live in better harmony with their surrounding environments.

When it was his turn to speak, he shared about how his life has been made better by hunting, fishing and camping, and how he wanted to help preserve environments that will sustain those activities for future generations.

As part of his college application process, G had to write about a business plan or other innovative idea that he had and what he hoped it would accomplish.

He chose to write about different ideas that would help mitigate automobile collisions with wildlife.

What surprised me most about it was how much attention he has clearly been paying to the areas that he travels through, and with his knowledge of how wildlife is likely to behave, some of his ideas did sound plausible.

While I know what G’s priorities are, he brought the essay with projected savings for humans, both in terms of lives and money.

Since I sat through similar programs with A, just two years ago, I have seen a shift in the priorities facing this batch of soon-to-be graduates. Of course, things feel like they’ve shifted quite a bit in the last two years, globally, but I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference to the teenagers.

When I asked G what I thought the difference was, well, honestly, asking him to compare himself to his brother wasn’t quite a fair question, and the sarcastic comments that were made are not worth committing to paper.

He did, however, have some insight, and most of it was related to the pandemic. He thought that maybe being shut down during middle school, when he wasn’t quite as “online” as kids who were already in high school might have had something to do with it. He also thought that having a global pandemic happen to them just made them aware of how much impact small events can eventually have around the entire world.

He also said that A probably doesn’t care how much gas costs right now since he’s at school and not driving that much, whereas G is filling up his tank regularly, and acutely aware of the pain at the pump. Does it always come back to the economy? Even for the kids?

Having lofty goals is one thing, achieving them is a different story, but listening to these kids has given me a glimmer of hope that we’re not raising a generation of self-centered, screen addicts.

Of course, during the same time period, I also witnessed two insane acts of road rage where the drivers both got out of their vehicles, despite the traffic around them, and proceeded to scream and threaten each other, and a situation where a conflict between two students at school spilled over between their parents later.

There was a lot of hatred and anger on display.

Life lately has seemed like a constant balancing act between incredible anger and frustration that escalates and spills over into all aspects of life, and these brief, beautiful snippets of optimism and hope for not just our future, but a future beyond our own.

Hopefully, the scale starts to tip harder towards those glimmers more and more.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News