Nothing Matters

You are one person out of 7.6 billion on this planet. Nothing you do is going to matter. Even if you do leave your mark on the world, it will eventually be meaningless. As said in The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, “There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you.” You are one person, on a relatively small planet, in a small solar system, in a small galaxy, in our infinite universe. There is nothing you could do that is important enough to affect the ever-expanding universe that we are all living in. Graduating class of 2018, now that I’ve caused an existential crisis for all of you, let me explain why this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I have a watercolor painting that I made in art class first semester this year. I painted my dog, it was looking pretty good, I had been taking my time and trying to get the little details right. It was almost done, I was just finishing the black around the eye, when I smudged the black. I tried to get as much of the paint out as possible with wet paper towels, but it’s still all I can see when I look at it. When other people see it though, they don’t notice my mistake until I point it out. We tend to blow up our mistakes and make them bigger than they need to be, the truth is everyone is too focused on their own problems to remember everything you’ve done wrong. No one else remembers that one time you tripped on the stairs in sixth grade, or that time your voice cracked during a chorus concert. Most mistakes don’t matter at all, and even if you do something worse, no mistake will ever be bad enough that it will affect the entire universe.

Another story, I was on the bus one day with one of my friends. She was upset about something that had happened that day. She sat next to me, and told me about what had happened; she was clearly hurt and had good reason to be. She started crying while telling me what was going on, and then she began apologizing to me for crying. I just looked her in the eye and said: “You are allowed to have emotions”. I know everyone needs that reminder sometimes; people can’t be happy all the time. A few weeks later she told me that, my empathy was exactly what she needed to hear at the time. I wanted to help her because my friends matter to me. Understanding that nothing matters, means that it’s up to you to decide what matters.

Nothing matters. You are one person, on a small planet, in a small solar system, in a small galaxy, in our infinite universe. No mistake you can make will ever be bad enough that it will ruin the whole universe. You are one person out of 7.6 billion, don’t let any of them tell you what is important, because that’s up to you.

Photo on Foter.com