Does Anything We Do Matter?
Yes. Everything you do matters. To and for you.
The world is a crazy place.
Here in the United States, the Presidential election is about to start. Caucuses, primaries, debates, and a whole host of lengthy, largely unpleasant bullshit will be dominating the news cycle over the coming months.
Due to the probability of the GOP running a traitorous criminal as their candidate – and showing time and again that ethics matter way less than winning and having control – this is bound to be ugly, unpleasant, depressing, infuriating, and terrifying all at the same time. I don’t desire to be so negative about this, but this is the reality of the situation at hand.
To that end, I’m striving to be on social media less, not watch the news, and stay informed about all that’s going on without letting it get to me or cause me unnecessary harm.
It’s far too easy to feel a sense of impending doom and gloom about the world right now. Outside the US, there’s the ugliness of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Russian conquest in the Ukraine, the shipping disruption in the Red Sea, and other disturbing things. Even writing the above is making me feel a sense of dread and hopelessness.
Inevitably, this leads to this question: Does anything we do matter? Despite the above, the answer is yes.
Take a different vantage point
While the above can and does impact us in different ways, for the most part, this is indirect. Unless we’re being bombed, forced from our homes, or immediately suffering at the hands of an agent of chaos and destruction, our vantage point is peripheral at best.
Does that seem insensitive? Here’s the thing – what can I do about anything going on in the world at large? The answer is little to nothing. I can boycott businesses and places, send emails, attend protests, and express my distaste for this insanity. However, apart from that, there’s little else I can do.
Focusing on it and giving it all of my attention doesn’t help the situation. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t help me and my life.
A little more locally, I can vote, attend protests, and speak out against rising fascism, racism, sexism, and other ugliness. Maybe I can write or email members of Congress and donate to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and other organizations working for the greater good. Aside from that, focusing on it, and/or giving it all of my attention doesn’t help the situation. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t help me and my life.
What we can do about the big picture, situations around the world, around the country, or even in our local neighborhoods, is limited. Why? Because we have little to no control here. We cannot make anyone else see things as we see them, feel them how we feel them, or even express the kindness, compassion, and empathy they don’t – yet scream about endlessly when not given to them.
When you look at the big picture, and the situations all around the world, it feels like anything we do doesn’t matter. However, that’s simply not true.
Does anything we do matter?
Of course it does. It matters to us. What that means is that anything that we do matters. It matters to and for us.
Ah, but isn’t that selfish? From a certain point of view, yes. That, however, is dependent on your definition of selfishness.
Mine is simple. Any action taken with malice of forethought, knowing full well that you are causing hurt or harm to another, and YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT, is selfish. That’s the straightforward, genuine definition of true selfishness. I’m taking everything I’m entitled to, even if it leaves you nothing, and fuck you.
Hence, any act of basic self-care, such as saying no, ending a relationship that isn’t working, quitting a stressful job, cutting off toxic family members, acting for the best interests of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and/or physical health-wellness-wellbeing, is not selfish. Someone else might call it that if your self-care impacts them in a way they dislike. Yet it is not selfish.
There’s a reason I’m taking this stand about genuine and perceived selfishness. Too many people put themselves last, take less-than-sufficient care of themselves, and give themselves little to no kindness, compassion, and/or empathy, so as not to be called selfish. The truth is, it’s not. SELF-CARE IS NOT SELFISH.
When you begin with self-care, you become more empowered. When you are more empowered, you become a beacon. That beacon can help others to also become empowered.
However, others can only be empowered if they themselves choose to be.
You can only do what matters for you, first
If we are lucky, on average, we get to live in these bodies, in this time, on this planet, about 8 decades. Eighty years might seem like a lot of time, but you need to account for the first 20 being largely beyond your control. That’s due, in part, to the human biological need for nurture to survive our first two decades or so.
Now you have only 6 decades, 60 years, to experience this life. Harsh, I know, but it still begs the question. What are you doing with your time here?
This is why anything we do matters. When we recognize and acknowledge how finite our time is, we can make better choices to get the most from it that we can. Even in the face of the awfulness of so many parts of the world around us.
The thing is, when you accept that the world is shit, and that bad things dominate it, that can and will bring you down. Yet, you have a choice. Choose to take action, be consciously aware and in the now, practice mindfulness with that, and live with passion, and maybe a purpose. – OR – You can choose to let life live you and be a puppet of the collective consciousness. – Or – There is a third main choice. Give up, curl up into a ball literally or figuratively, and wait for it all to end.
Does what we do matter? Hell yes. Because we get one shot each, in this time, living and experiencing in these bodies. How we make the most of that time is what matters most. That starts for you, first.
Are you making choices and decisions to live, to do, to experience life? Or not?
Does anything we do matter to the big picture?
In the abstract, no. However, when you zoom in on yourself and your life, it absolutely does matter.
Why? Because you are one of 8 billion people on this planet. All 8,000,000,000 people have choices they get to make for how they desire to live. Granted, some have fewer and less palatable choices than others. Yet we all have choices.
If you’re reading this, you probably have many choices available to you. Thus, you can choose to do what matters to you. Decide to live as fully as possible.
Know this – choosing to be the best you that you can be, to live with passion, does no harm to others. I’m not writing about being unkind, uncompassionate, and unsympathetic, making choices and decisions that bring harm to others for no true benefit to you. The lack, scarcity, and insufficiency frequently presented to us is false. We’re not in competition for either tangibles or intangibles. Hence, you deciding to live as fully as possible doesn’t mean someone else can’t.
No, living your best life won’t help the horrors in Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, or Texas. However, it will empower you, which makes you a beacon to empower others. The more people we can empower, the more we can drive back the fear in this fear-based society. Think globally by acting locally, or more specifically, acting personally.
This does take something of a perspective shift. Yet I believe that choosing and deciding to live life as fully as possible matters. To make anything we do matter to the big picture, we must start with ourselves from within to do more without.
This is not selfish, but it is self-interest. You alone live your life and can be who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be.
Does this help you recognize how anything we do can matter?
This is the six-hundred and twenty-ninth (629) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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