A Theory About Who and What Matters

Courtesy of: Word Press

You can start fires with your ideas and jump start the human race with the things you say.

But can you though?  Can you, a singular person in this world of seven billion people, really make a difference?

Usually, no.  The majority of the people that are born aren't going to make a significant difference.  In certain lives, yes, you'll make a difference, but in the scheme of the whole world, not really.

I mean, Time magazine only recognizes a 100 influential people a year, so does that mean that every year only a hundred individuals make a difference?  But maybe those 100 people didn't make as much of a difference as we think.

What I'm wondering is who made this list.  Who has the right to decide what constitutes a person who matters versus a person who doesn't?

My opinion is this: different people matter a different amount to everyone.  Someone I've never met, as of right now, doesn't matter at all to me, while my mom & dad and friends matter a lot.  But this person I've never met could end up being my college roommate.

The thing is, you don't really know someone will be important in your life until they are.  People like to say, "Oh, when I met my husband for the first time I new right away that he was the one."  I'm fifteen and I've never been in love before, but to me it just doesn't seem like that's how it works.

But maybe it is, and that's beautiful.  To know the minute you lock eyes with someone that they're going to matter is an amazing thought, but from my experience that's not quite how the process goes. There are people in my life that are super important now, that I never would have thought I would even see on a daily basis.  The relationships I have now are not the relationships I thought I would have had three years ago.

Take for example Beyonce.  I love Beyonce and so does the rest of the world.  But that doesn't make her anymore important than someone who isn't a famous singer.

A lot of people may know Beyonce, but she hasn't mattered as much as say a brain surgeon, who has saved dozens of peoples lives.  People who were husbands, wives, mothers, father, daughters, sons.  The people that were saved by this brain surgeon and their families probably love him a lot more than they love Beyonce.

What I'm trying to say is it's all in perspective.  You may feel like you aren't that important in the big picture of things, but you are.

Just think, when you were born, you're mom was happy.  She smiled at the bus driver her first day back at work.  That smile made the bus drivers day.  He was going to go home tonight, and like every other night, watch tv while he fell asleep on the couch.  But since the women getting on the bus gave him the most genuine smile he'd seen in years, he decided to go visit his daughter.

And all because of you.  Because of you, a father and daughter reconciled.

Every second we're alive, our lives are being changed by people.  We may not realize it, but right now someone could be doing something that in ten years will come back to you and it will completely change your life.

We're all in this never ending cycle of affecting and being affected others, and to me that's amazing.  The fact that somehow we're all connected by the choices we make.

So just remember, that even though it may not always seem like it, you really do matter, and you really are important.

In hindsight, Time's list of influential people should be seven billion people long, because every person alive, has made a difference.

Elise :)