If I have raised you right, you should have felt a sadness, a pinch, a gut check, an anger, a hurt when that verdict was read.

Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old boy, was senselessly killed. Yes, that hurts. It should.

George Zimmerman, the man who shot him, was acquitted by a jury of six women in Florida.

A boy lost his life. And there was no acknowledgment from our criminal justice system that a wrong occurred.

We know the prosecution had an uphill battle to make a case in the land of Stand Your Ground. But this we know: Trayvon had bought Skittles and iced tea at a convenience store. He was walking back to where he was staying when Zimmerman followed him, and ended up in a confrontation.

Rather than repeat the rules you've heard from those who love you about how you should behave if you ever find yourself in a similar situation (because, hopefully, you know that survival matters most), let me say what we know in our hearts to be true:

That man should not have assumed Trayvon was a criminal because of how he was dressed or because he was black.

He should not have ignored the 911 dispatcher, who said he did not need to follow the teenager.

He should not have taken the law into his own hands.

All of that was wrong.

It's OK to feel outraged.

It's OK to feel scared for a moment.

Anything man-made is imperfect. Our laws, our government, our justice system can never be completely fair. And, if you look anything like Trayvon or have ever been looked at with suspicion simply for what and who you are, you know that better than most.

I know how that look feels. I hope that you will never learn how that look feels, but odds are that you will.

Anger. Fear. Resentment. These are powerful emotions. They can paralyze us, or they can call us to action. They are never justification for resignation or apathy or violence. Despite what louder voices might try to say, our country is not where it was 100 or 50 years ago. We will not discount the progress that has been made, the battles that have been fought and won. There are friendships and families that exist more easily, with more respect, that may not have been possible mere decades ago.

Any time we bear witness to injustice it is a reminder of how great our responsibility is, and that each of us has a role to play.

Look in the mirror. You may wear a hoodie. You might share Trayvon's features or color. Or you may not look a thing like him. It doesn't matter.

We are familiar with the saying that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama added, "It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: It does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice."

Where are your hands on that arc?

Read. Read even more. Educate yourself. Make your voice heard. Call your elected officials. When you are able, vote. Work to help elect those who you believe will make things more fair. Stand up to bigotry when you hear it. Challenge assumptions when those around you make them.

And take a minute to feel what a teenager being questioned, followed and confronted by an unidentified man with a gun might have felt in the moments before he was shot.

After the anger and hurt, injustice is meant to remind us of our own power. It is the most stark reminder that our worth is not derived from others' assessment of us. It is intrinsic to us as human beings.

You know that you belong. You know your own value and worth, just as I know mine.

I still don't feel right inside about what happened with Trayvon or the man who killed him. Any of it.

I don't think we ever should.

More than halfway through summer, we've taken our big trips and attended our obligatory family reunions. My girlfriends and I were sitting around the other day, eating pizza and swapping stories about that which makes or breaks so many vacations: other family members.

In the case of families with young children, there is a delicate balancing act known as "vacationing with the in-laws." Grandmas, grandpas, uncles, aunts, cousins and in-laws of all varieties converge and eventually annoy the bejeezus out of one another, all in the name of bonding and togetherness.

One friend of mine confessed that she could not understand why her husband's aunt had to know -- months in advance -- what my friend planned to make on her assigned night of their themed family dinners.

As it turned out, the aunt-in-law had a date with a truckload of papier-mache.

For each night of the week, the crafty aunt would create a pinata that matched that night's dinner theme. For example, if the theme was Hawaiian night, she'd create a pineapple pinata.

After dinner, the children were handed sticks for bashing these creations, and the adults were expected to cheer. These were not ordinary pinatas, however. They were bulletproof. Thirty minutes into the fun activity, the children started to get weary; the adults, much wearier.

And so it continued. Every night. Six nights in a row.

Months before, under pressure to declare her theme, my friend had said: "OK! OK! 'Green Eggs and Ham.' I'll do 'Green Eggs and Ham.'"

She ended up doing "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" by dumping blue food coloring on some tilapia. The Dr. Seuss Cat-in-the-Hat pinata took a beating and eventually gave up, like so many of us do when in-laws are involved.

Another girlfriend said that at least the pinata-bashing involved some physical activity. On her sojourn with her husband's family, entire days -- sunup to sundown -- were spent doing nothing but sitting on the deck and drinking beer. After the kids went to bed, joints were passed around. Time stood still.

As all adult children know, certain courtesies are expected when parents are footing the bill for the vacation.

While staying at her mother-in-law's condo in Florida during the holidays, another friend was expected to be at the dinner table by 5 p.m. every night.

"I was 36, and I had a curfew," she said. "We ended up going to bed at the same time as our 3-year-old daughter."

They were too scared to ask for a night out alone.

But perhaps the best in-law tale involved a hygiene quandary.

My friend once received an email from her sister-in-law.

The subject line simply read: "HELP!"

"OMG! I think I am going to hurt myself! (Stepmother-in-law) asked 'Baby' to help clean the dishes! Do I still let the kids eat off of them?! Wait... Do I still eat off of them? Ugh!"

The "Baby" in question was her in-laws' cocker spaniel puppy.

There may be people you haven't spoken to in ages, but you know when they've conquered a new level in Candy Crush Saga or how many miles they crushed in their last run.

We live in an age of auto-sharing, after all.

But is there something more sinister developing when all the world is literally a stage? Could our fascination with self be turning us into unhealthy narcissists?

Chris Barry, associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi, has studied narcissism in adolescents and describes it as a preoccupation with being viewed favorably by others in comparison to others. He distinguished between two types: grandiose and vulnerable.

The former may be more familiar, with celebrities like Donald Trump as a poster child, but the latter seeks affirmation and admiration to support a fragile self-esteem. Barry's research finds higher levels of narcissism in adolescents linked to problems such as anxiety, depression and aggression toward others.

Narcissists may be able to win people over quickly, but they have trouble maintaining long-term relationships, whether with co-workers, friends, family or spouses.

There are consequences to society if we are, indeed, more reliant on constant positive feedback from others. We are likely to end up more lonely and less empathetic.

"Ten or 20 years down the line, we can ask, 'Did social media make us more narcissistic?'" Barry said. Did it become normative, he asked, to be narcissistic or get left behind?

Right now, the jury is out as to the degree to which narcissistic behavior has changed over the years, or which cultural or societal factor may be influencing any such change, he said. But, there's no denying that the advent of social media allows us to witness such behavior with regularity.

"It seems like each generation points to the next as egocentric and self-centered. ... These are developmental issues we've always grappled with, and now we have bigger platforms to display. We're more aware of people doing it."

Unsurprisingly, a study released last month found a connection between how often people post on social networks and their self-reported scores on a scale measuring narcissistic personality traits.

Researchers Elliot Panek, Yioryos Nardis and Sara Konrath conducted research at the University of Michigan looking at Facebook and Twitter use among student and adult samples.

"We found what a lot of people suspected to be true," Panek said. "There's some connection between narcissism and how often people post on social networks."

Perhaps more surprisingly, they measured "frequent" posting as "more than once a day." That's not to suggest that people who post frequently are all narcissists, of course. But social media is a handy tool for those who already have that personality trait.

Facebook is the mirror for adults with higher self-reported narcissism levels, Panek said, while Twitter is an amplified megaphone for students with the highest reported levels. Facebook allows one to maintain an image among established social circles and observe reactions to what is posted, he explained. Twitter is a public broadcast technology, allowing one to share a message with anyone who wants to see it.

"They are certainly great tools for someone to self-aggrandize," Panek said, especially those craving an audience.

Kali Trzesniewski, a social-developmental psychologist at the University of California-Davis, says she has not found any increase in narcissism among adolescents after looking at data sets from the past 30 years.

What's everybody posting on social networks, she asked? People talk about their children, food and trips. This is the new normal of social behavior.

"It's hard to say it's narcissistic when it's normative," Trzesniewski said. "Most people are within a normative boundary."

It's not just a question of whether those on the far end of the bell curve have become more noticeable, but whether the curve itself has shifted.

And perhaps those candy-crushing updates are just a way to give procrastinators of another stripe a way to feel better about themselves.