This is Why You Matter
Exploring what gives your life meaning
It’s easy to forget why your life really matters in our crazy and misleading society,
We are surrounded by rapid advancements, various problems, people who are our age achieving more than we can dream of, and war.
Staying on top of it is not easy. Finding your place is even harder.
Looking at the bigger picture, our tiny existence is but a blink of the eye in the grand timeline of the universe.
When you zoom out that far, you feel meaningless.
My goal here is to explain to you exactly why you matter.
You are here right now
It doesn’t matter what you believe in… simulation theory, an afterlife, or nothing at all, you are still here, experiencing every moment.
Let’s say we are in a simulation and you were programmed into here, or you chose to plug yourself in. Why does that make a difference? You should still make the best of it.
If you believe that you die and then there is nothing, you should still make the best of it.
Your actions still have an impact on the life you are living and those around you.
You can see that the decisions you’ve made in the past, and the smile on the face of your friend when you see them for the first time in months.
Live purposefully.
Choose what you value
To make the best of the life you have right now, you need to choose what truly matters to you.
What do you value?
Work?
Family?
Helping others?
Becoming the best version of yourself?
This is how you determine where to spend your time. Investing more time in these areas will make your life more meaningful.
Imagine your day as a jar, and you have 24 rocks, one for each hour. You need to pick which jars you want to fill with your rocks.
Will you fill your sleep, work, gym, or family jar more?
How comfortable are you with having one jar substantially more full than the next?
It is a simple visual, but one that can add purpose to your time spent.
Don’t avoid pain, choose it
Pain is inevitable. The point is not to try to avoid it, but to pick the pain worth enduring.
“What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.” — Mark Manson
If your values are with family and work, the late work nights and crying babies become worth it. The pain is manageable.
Who you become is defined by these struggles. You need to be confronted by pain to be moulded into a great person.
Greatness cannot exist without struggle.
Happiness doesn’t come easy. But by pushing through struggle and solving the problems that align with your values, it will come.
When your late night at work produces results, you will feel happy.
When you show love to your crying child, and she smiles at you, you will feel happy.
This is why you need to pick your values (and pain) carefully.
You are the universe experiencing itself
At this point, you may still be thinking, “But none of it will matter in the grand scheme of things anyway.”
This feeling comes when you feel separate from the universe. You don’t feel connected.
The truth is, you are not just a tiny speck in the universe. You are the universe experiencing itself.
“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.” — Alan Watts
This awakening comes to those who practice meditation.
Over time, you start to feel the connection. Every breath you take and emotion you feel, you notice is the universe experiencing itself through you.
Simply put… You are the universe in its human form.
The universe gave birth to you.
In the same way, an apple tree has apples growing out of it (as Alan Watts would say); the universe has grown you.
Without you, the universe would still be infinitely massive and beautiful, but it would not be able to experience its beauty.
Your struggles and joys are a unique way for the universe to experience everything that is.
This experience you are having is unique from the next person’s. The only thing you can do is live it.
It can be hard to realize that your actions do not make an impact. But the fact is, you are the impact.
You matter when you choose to live your life fully and are present through each experience.
You need to be here.
Now.
Thanks for reading