The Threshold Moment: Navigating Between What Was and What Can Be
"The secret is to remove all ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh
In Tribe, Sebastian Junger opens with a frontier puzzle: again and again, colonists captured by or assimilated into Native communities refused “rescue.” When Europeans came to reclaim them, many chose to stay—or slipped away at the first chance to return to their adopted tribes. The author frames this as a referendum on belonging: daily life in small, mutual-obligation groups often felt richer than the isolating “superior” society they’d left. He notes the flow rarely went the other direction.
In our modern day, it would be naive to try to read this and apply it literally.
We live in different times. However, it's apparent that many of us, maybe including you, sense that something is missing. There seems to be a longing for something that is lost but deeply familiar.
The march towards progress has given us many gifts. One of them has not been well-being.
Consider the following:
Since 2019, more Americans are in therapy, yet more report depression and distress, while suicide rates are at an all-time high—a sign that access alone can’t offset the forces fraying our mental health.
40%+ of U.S. adults have obesity, and every state now exceeds 20% adult obesity prevalence.
Harvard surveyed 10,000 middle/high-schoolers and found that ~80% said their parents prioritize achievement over relational bonds.
Teen mental health now: In 2023, 40% of U.S. high-schoolers felt persistently sad/hopeless; 20% seriously considered suicide
We spend more time alone: The share of free time spent alone grew from 43.5% (2003) → 48.7% (2019), → 50.7% (2020).
U.S. church membership fell below 50% for the first time (2020), and regular attendance is down to ~30% (2021–2023).
Americans with no close friends rose from 3% (1990) to 12% (2021). In 2021, 15% of men reported zero close friends.
The U.S. hit its lowest-ever rank (24th) in the 2025 World Happiness Report.
We have made significant strides in technology, medicine, and access, but how do we reconcile the data presented above?
By recognizing that the responsibility has gone from institutional to the individual.
We wanted freedom, and we got it. Now, it's time to reclaim the pieces we left behind, namely, our well-being.
What once was baked into existence (deep friendships, daily proximal encounters with elders, aunties, uncles, and extended family, a connection to the numinous, rites of passage, a vocational calling, and a sense of belonging) is now up to the individual.
You are the de facto human performance director of your own path and, if you're a parent, of those you are supporting.
Most of us are not going back to living the way the Natives did. And it's clear we are going through some growing pains as a collective, and the individuals are taking the hits. So that leaves us in a liminal stage where we know what we are currently doing has some serious flaws, but the new world we wish to live in is not here yet.
We are in a threshold moment.
You, me, and anyone who chooses can take our current situation and live in ways that both honor the progress we've made while course correcting along the way to cultivate an environment where our well-being is at the forefront.
Rather than running from our "rescuers" to remain in our adopted tribe like the colonists did in the opening story, we are invited to create our own tribe.
We must try.