You are nobody special

In my writing class the other day, this was the prompt we were given: "In one page, say everything important there is to say about the world. (If you had only one page to fill with everything vital, urgent and necessary that you know/feel/suspect, what would that page be? Of the world as you have experienced it, what is absolutely crucial to report?)" I had a difficult time getting going on this assignment because I could not think of where to begin. Each day for a week I'd think about it and try to figure out what direction to go, but got nowhere, until finally, on the day of the class, I figured out the path I wanted to take. And here's what came out of it.

You are nobody special. The good news is, neither am I. The world will try to make you think that others are more important, but the truth is, they're nobody special either. We all came into the world the same way and we'll all leave it the same way, albeit, by a number of different means.

We're all tiny cogs in a very big machine. We're more important as a whole than as an individual.  The world doesn't care about you. If one of those cogs was replaced with another, the machine would continue to run as usual, without a second thought.

There are the few that will make an impact on the world. They'll rise up and incite change. But even they are nothing without the thousands and millions and even billions of others.

If you want to change the world, you're more than welcome to try. But in my experience, what's more important is the impact you leave on those closest to you.

Life is what you make of it. If you want to go through life on your own and never let anyone else in, you can. If you want to have fun all of the time and never think about the consequences, you can do that, too, but it'll probably catch up with you sooner or later. Or you can build a life for yourself and the people that you care about and the people that will come after you.

To me, the most important things in life are a smile to brighten someone's day, helping those who may not have as much as you do, being there for your friend when they really need you, spending time in the arms of the one you love. Little things that make an impact on those around you. Those are the legacies that really matter. Because to those people, you are somebody special.