There’s a bus stop on my front lawn. I think about this often — how in suburbia, neighbors might post “keep off the grass” signs, but here in my small city, the neighborhood literally comes to me. It’s just one of countless small, cool things I’ve found in semi-urban living that I’ve been reflecting on lately.

My mental health toolkit includes meditation, journaling, a bit of exercise, and — every day, almost without fail — about 45 minutes with a brutally difficult card-based video game called Slay the Spire. What started as a pandemic coping mechanism has evolved into an essential ritual that’s now woven into the fabric of my life.

Lately, I’ve been noticing how much emotional stress technology places on people across all demographics. Technology increasingly shifts burdens onto users by design, creating anxiety and exclusion—particularly for those less comfortable navigating digital spaces, and I believe that it’s time to recognize and reverse this trend.

Is it naive to have hope right now? Is it just the daffodils and forsythias, explosions of yellow and green that seemed to appear overnight, tricking me into thinking things will eventually get better? Are warm breezes carrying the scent of an awakening earth leading me astray? I don’t know. It’s important to recognize hard times and be realistic about the world as it is, but I also find myself, again and again, coming across things that give me hope.