I want to do things that matter. I really, desperately want to do things that matter. And I know that you do, too. So this goes out to all of you who don’t know what their “talent” or “passion” is. This goes out to all of those who may know but have been told or taught in some way or another that the skills they do have are worthless in the face of our madly competitive, blindly economy-driven, globalized world.
A long time ago, someone close to my family asked me what it is that I want to do with my life when I’m older. I said I want to write. The person turned to me — just a young teenager at the time — and said:
“The world has enough opinions already. It doesn’t need yours.”
I didn’t realize it back then, but those words went on to have a profound impact on me. I instantly, completely, deeply, stopped mattering.
I stopped mattering because writing is, coincidentally, who I am. Writing is how I exist. I have no other tricks up my sleeve. That’s pretty much it. That’s all I’ve got.
Perhaps you know the feeling in your very own way. Perhaps someone has told you something similar (hopefully in milder terms) about your hobby or your skills or your idea at one point or another in your life. If that is the case, then this is for you.
Who decides whether something matters?
Ten years after those words had punched me in the guts I found myself sitting in a quiet room, facing a row of acclaimed professors. I was trying with a shaking voice — and weirdly sweaty hands — to lure them into granting me a PhD scholarship.
I had worked hard for many years to be in that room. I had worked hard for many years to finally say what I wanted to say; to finally be taken seriously by serious people.
What happened is that I had an unexpected meltdown in which my brain blacked out. Completely! I stammered shit that was in no way related to the fancy power point presentation I had prepared in advance. My cheeks were on fucking fire. At one point, I heard myself mumble: “Oh God, I can’t do this.” I physically felt the cringing of all bodies surrounding me in the tension-laden twilight of the room.
Once time had run out I was met with harsh criticism and, from one professor, open ridicule. He had quietly chuckled here and there throughout my talk and once it was his turn, he ripped my research proposal to pieces.
After the interview I got up with shaking knees, stumbled out of the room and knew: this particular door had just slammed shut in my face. There was no way I would ever get that scholarship.
There was something else that suddenly became clear to me. As I left the room behind me and walked out into the crisp, bright spring sunshine I suddenly started wondering: Who were these people to make me feel so inferior? Who were they to ridicule my serious attempts at doing something worthwhile? And, perhaps more accurately, who was I to let them?
For the first time in my life, I truly, fully understood what Eleonor Roosevelt must have meant when she said:
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
I suddenly saw that there was only one scenario in which I would return home a humiliated shadow of my former self: if I personally agreed that a professor’s value judgement of the things I cared about was more important than my own.
I at once saw that during all those years I’d really just tried to buy myself credibility with education. Perhaps if I was a blatantly smart person my opinion would finally be worth something. Perhaps then I’d be allowed to say what I needed to say. Perhaps then I’d be taken seriously, seriously at last.
Because! I want to say things. That’s just how I was born. That’s how I tick.
Grown people ridiculing others made me understand: none of these sophisticated stuck-ups were actually in any way superior to me. In many ways, they — despite being twenty, thirty, forty years my senior — clearly weren’t even more mentally mature than me.
Holy shit. It was a ground-breaking moment.
I was free.
Let’s All Start to Matter Again. I’ll Go First.
The truth is, this world has a lot of jobs that need to get done. Though it’s easy to lose sight of what’s hiding behind our digital curtains, this planet is actually full of real problems that desperately need solving. And I mean full of!
In this very moment, there are a shitload of innovations and changes and revolutions that have yet to happen. A lot of hands need to get dirty — and a whole bunch of mouths, too (mine, for example).
Not everyone has to take the next plane to Africa and drill waterholes. Not everyone has to figure out an alternative to the capitalist growth paradigm, not everyone has to be a neurosurgeon or an eco-activist or the founder of a social startup that eradicates global poverty and re-invents society as we know it.
This is another thing I am sick of: I am sick of feeling like a failure just because I cannot keep up with all the amazing people who are, thanks to the big shiny Internet, so annoyingly unignorable these days.
No. Not everyone has to make huge fucking waves — because here’s the thing, not everyone can. Most of us, in fact, cannot. We just can’t. This is precisely the point. We aren’t the big shots we see popping up so tauntingly from every corner. Most of us are actually more like cute, little shots.
The majority of us aren’t ferociously passionate about one particular thing, either. We just aren’t. A lot of us have no clue what our one, true talent even may be. I know passions and talents are totally hyped right now and we’re all supposed to have them. But for some, it’s a bit more complicated than being born, picking up a pen and knowing right away: I will be the J. K. Rowling of aquasports fiction (is that actually a thing?).
Guys, just pick whatever you’re good at. And if according to your opinion that’s nothing, then pick whatever you at least kind of enjoy. There must be something! Try and go back to when you were young and did stuff without thinking about why you were doing them. You just… did them.
It doesn’t need to be a career, either. It can just be something that easily makes you spend one hour less on binging Netflix shows while simultaneously munching on buttered popcorn and scrolling your Facebook feed on your phone.
In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about a friend who, at age 40, picked up figure skating again — after decades of having given up on it as a teenager because she didn’t quite have the talent to make a living with it. One day she started getting up early three times a week and re-discovered getting lost in skating. Just for the heck of it. Just because this was what filled her heart with joy. Did she know Gilbert would mention her in the book? Did she know that hers would be an inspiration to thousands of people who ended up reading the book? Probably not.
So if you conclude that you like knitting, well then knit some real sweet shit and do something awesome with it. If it’s organizing and making lists and calculating stuff, well, calculate away! We need more people who calculate with passion! Though I’m not sure that’s actually an oxymoron! But who cares! Or perhaps you are really fucking awesome at putting on make-up and you totally dig doing contour.
I personally wouldn’t know what that’s good for but it is not my place to know.
This is the clue: If you can, maybe think a little bit about how what you love doing could bring joy to someone else along the way. And then go do that. Go do that! Seriously!
Knit a bunch of sweaters for people who are cold. Help a friend bring their accounting in order. Make someone feel really freaking beautiful not despite but with all of their scars. Why the hell not? Why not? I want you to really ask yourself, for yourself. Why. Not.
No matter what the world would have you believe: It’s precisely these things that matter.
You know why? Because every heart-felt little thing we share with others is certainly better than sharing nothing with nobody.
Every heart-felt little thing we share is definitely better than sharing another identical selfie with everybody.
Here’s another quote that I really like:
“Your playing small does not serve the world.”
Marianne Williamson
Honor the Magic Rug of Life
In making yourself small, all that happens is that the world quietly loses one tiny thread of the mind-bogglingly intricate pattern it is in the process of weaving.
No, we don’t know what the rug is supposed to look like in the end. We’re threads. It’s not our job. All we have to do is go and be nice, shiny, colorful fucking threads.
The rug will take care of itself. Trust the rug.
Perhaps you were put on earth for the sole reason of knitting a series of deer-themed Norwegian sweaters for someone who truly needed them. Granted, finding out would be a depressing — and yet also cosmically hilarious — revelation.
Who are we to know? We have no idea how everything is connected and how even the smallest of our actions affect the bigger picture.
Then again, perhaps your stupid sweaters make zero difference. And yet I can’t help but think that absolutely anything coming from the heart has got to be better than nothing coming from the heart. If you see it that way, then you have got to ask yourself: how could your gorgeous sweaters not make a difference? Even if just an atomically small one?
So.
After all these years, and after looking those professors squarely in their eyes, this is what I’ve finally concluded what many others have concluded before me:
It’s nobody else’s job to fucking decide whether what you like to do matters. You alone decide. For yourself. On your inside.
Read that again.
You alone decide whether or not what you do matters. And if ever anyone would like you to think otherwise, remember the Dude:
Conclusion
Here’s an eloquent summary of all that I just said.
If you feel that it’s worth your time, it fucking is. And it is so regardless of the perceived economic or cultural or social value people attribute to it externally.
If something old and deep and light-hearted inside you says that those are unfortunately the lame things you happen to enjoy doing, well cheers to that, you found your calling.
And guess what, it may not turn out to be your career. It may just be your sweaters (is it time to stop with the sweaters now?). Disappointing, I know, especially to a generation that has grown up with Mom telling them that anything is possible.
Whether you matter or not is a decision nobody else can make for you, no matter what the world would have you believe.
So whom are you going to give the power to judge? It’s your choice.
Afterword
Okay so he was right after all. This all really isn’t a new opinion. In fact, all of this has been said thousands of times before. In much more eloquent ways, of course, and in ways that contained the word fuck a lot less often.
But this is MY way of saying it.
And now I’ve said it.
Deal with it. I’m sure you’ll survive.
Peace out.
