Obviously, life means different to everyone.
To me, life is not limited to the collection of shockingly awe-inspiring experiences and events dispersed haphazardly around boring stretches of monotony and tedium. Life is about one thing above all else; life is about other people.
Yes, life is not about you (the horror). Millions, ok billions, of people throughout time have spent their lifetimes greedily amassing untold wealth and riches only to eventually pass it on to family members or charities. These inheritors then go on to either waste the entire thing or hold on to it carefully enough to pass it forward to their own eventual inheritors, and so on. None get to truly hold onto and experience the fruit of our labors forever. Thus, we conclude that life cannot simply be the acquisition of wealth alone.
What about religion, you ask. What about the moral, philosophical, emotional, and ethical aspects of life?
Exactly, my dear reader, that is where we find the true answer. Most religions of the world preach similar messages of the rights of our neighbors, our fellow man as it were. But Greg sucks, you think. That guy does nothing but pokes his fat nose in my business the moment I set foot outside. The thing is, even though Greg may, in fact, be a righteous cow at times, he stands as one of many who walk this earth alongside you. Living life to the best of his ability every day. You will most certainly not find common ground with every person you meet, but you don't have to. That's not the point.
Life is about reaching out and somehow improving the lives of as many people as we can. That can range from a simple smile to a blank cheque (DISCLAIMER: don't write anyone a blank cheque; unless you were already planning to). It's like driving a car, you aren't meant to make rapid, and dramatic turns every second but small, purposeful adjustments as you go along.
Give Greg a smile while you speed-walk to your car in the morning, don't cross the street when you see a homeless person or beggar on the street; give them whatever spare change you know you won't miss. Keep this up, keep making adjustments to the world, and little by little, you will have changed the world for the better, even if only slightly. People always seem to be complaining about how their jobs seem pointless, and nothing that they do will change anything. This simply cannot be true. Just because you, one person among billions, cannot truly ever perceive the effect of your actions does not diminish or negate the impact.
You don't have to win a Nobel Peace Prize. You don't have to become a United Nations peacekeeper or the next Mother Teresa. All you need to do is your part, however much you can manage. By the end of your journey on this earth, you will have created something that will carry forward into the generations, till mankind's last day in this universe. You will have created a ripple effect that will carry on in the minds of people across the world for generations to come. So go out there, help someone however you can, put some positivity out into the world. Many have put the opposite, their hatred, their fears, their inhibitions out there throughout mankind's few thousand years on this planet, and we still feel quite a disproportionately large amount of it today (think about it).
Make the change, do your part to flip the script. One day, maybe sooner than you think, the scales will tip towards the better, and humanity as a whole will have little old, not-so-insignificant-now, you to thank. So smile, change the world one step at a time.
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