Sometimes I feel intimidated by the world around me. Knowing it is full of human beings and animals who have thoughts and wishes and plans of their own is so much to process, that even just being a tiny particle in that image feels like too much weight to balance. Somewhere on this planet, there is someone thinking, dying, being born, travelling, writing, reading, arguing…. So many things happen in a second. It’s a lot to get my head around, and then when I add into that my fear that I will never contribute enough to justify my existence, it is even more.
My self confidence is higher than it used to be but is still low; I can be aware of this fact without being able to adjust it, or at least this is where I am standing with things at the moment. I so want to be a useful entity to this planet. But how much is what I do every day actually worth? Does it have a use? How do you measure what something is worth at all? A conversation which makes someone smile isn’t worth the same as a Nobel Peace Prize. Or is it? Because surely individual lives and their value is not the same, quantifiably, against acts of humanitarian goodness?
All of these thought try and straighten themselves out in my brain, figuring out where I sit on this planet of ours, wondering if my planetary worth is the same as my self worth, or if they are muddled up together.
I love this world, and I try to love those I’m with on this planet, and those I’m not with. Obviously, I think it goes without saying there will always be arseholes, and I feel no obligation to love those who can’t be loved for whatever reason. I know there is a lot of thought about trying to love everyone, be it from religious groups or those simply advocating peace, but whilst I don’t generally consider violence to be the way forward, there are some I just do not want to, and choose not to, waste my energy and love on.
We all have a responsibility towards this planet, and caring for it, and contributing towards it meaningfully. But how much is what I can offer worth?
Food for thought.