Everything You Do Will Be Insignificant, But It’s Important That You Do It
There’s a quote by Ghandi that I first came across when watching the movie Remember Me, almost 10 years ago. I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since.
Whatever you do in life will be insignificant but it is very important that you do it because you can’t know. You can’t ever really know the meaning of your life. And you don’t need to. Every life has a meaning, whether it lasts one hundred years or one hundred seconds. Every life, and every death, changes the world in its own way. You can’t know. So don’t take it for granted. But don’t take it too seriously. Don’t postpone what you want.
Whatever you do in life will be insignificant.
Whether you’re a country music star and the whole world knows your name, or you’re a waitress who lives in a small town in the south of Italy, and never sets foot out of the country. Whether you find the cure to an incurable disease, or you work an office job that wouldn’t really miss you if you weren’t there. If you have an army of kids, or you remain childless. You write a book, or you make a movie, or you paint a masterpiece. You make $40k a year, or you make billions of dollars in your lifetime.
Whatever you do, whatever I do, will be insignificant. Because we are all going to die. That’s what we all share on this earth; the knowledge that this is temporary. But I wonder how many of us fully embrace this, or comprehend it. I wonder how many of us understand that it is all insignificant.
The dollars in our bank account, the praise, the trophies and medals, the fast cars and designer handbags, the luxury homes and the private jets. The breast implants and Botox and tucks and lifts. Showing up to work an hour early every day, and staying an hour late. Losing 50 pounds, pounding the pavement hard, and the ridges of your six-pack on your chest. All the times you thought you were living your best life. The chances you took, along with the ones you let pass you by. The things we say and do, and all the things we never say or do.
It’s all significant.
The world will keep on spinning.
You were born, and you will leave this earth one day, and life will go on. And maybe it will take 10 years, or 50 years, or thousands of years; but eventually, your time here will fade.
And maybe that makes you feel small, like you don’t matter, like none of this matters.
But you do matter, and it all matters.
Everything you do in life will be insignificant. But it’s very important that you do it.
It’s sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?
It doesn’t matter, but it’s important that you do it.
And this is because you can’t know how your life is going to impact the world. You can’t fully comprehend the lives you will touch and the hearts you will open, or the meaning of any of it when you’re in the moment, living your life.
This can be challenging for our minds, because they like to ask questions, and they want answers to those questions, immediately. But nobody can answer the question, “what is the meaning of my life?”
As Ghandi says, your life has a meaning. Every life has a meaning. But you can’t know what it is. You’ll never know, and perhaps you are not supposed to. Because, perhaps knowing may be overwhelming, or underwhelming, or even more confusing than not knowing.
You could spend your whole life looking for answers and explanations and meaning, and never find what you’re looking for. Or, you could spend your life doing things that bring you joy, and telling the people you love most how much you love them.
You could spend your life second guessing yourself and wondering whether you’re on the right path. Or, you could choose to trust your intuition to guide you forward, explore a few different paths, and see where they lead you.
You could spend your entire life trying to make it meaningful, trying to do something bold and brilliant that people remember you for. Or you could forget about other people, and focus on doing whatever makes you proud, whatever fills you up, and makes you feel most alive.
Because regardless of what you choose to do, it will be insignificant. But you must do it. Because you were born on purpose. Your life was infused with meaning the moment you took your first breath. Your life is constantly changing the world in subtle ways you cannot see, or know yet.
Everything you do in life will be insignificant. But it’s very important that you do it.
Because nobody else will.