Why Mattering… Doesn’t Even Matter.
Finding our purpose on Earth, if we even have one
“I’ll just do this tomorrow”. “They’re going to see my haircut and think of me differently.” “I need to post this or else people will think I’m antisocial”. “In a couple of years after that promotion.” “Once I retire.” “After they open my message.” “I’ll get laughed at so I can’t do it”.
It might depress you. It might enlighten you. But if this article can completely change how you approach life, than I have achieved my goal. I want to broaden your mind by bringing up deeper topics that most people don’t really talk about. By bringing up existential thoughts that we never stop to ponder. Maybe my curiosity and introversion got the best of me and I just spewed a bunch of over-dramatic nonsense. Or maybe facing the taboo helped me find a truly better way to live life. I’ll let you decide.
A little perspective…
The Milky Way, just a single galaxy, has over 100 billion stars. The number of galaxies estimated to exist in the universe? 2 trillion². So while we may think that our sun is significant and central to everything, there’s actually 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different suns out there. We’re small.
Our universe, where every single one of those stars lives, has existed for over 13 billion years. The average human exists for 71. If you lived as long as an average human compared to the universe, you would die in the time it takes to make a bowl of cereal. We’re really small.
And when we die, nothing really changes. The universe doesn’t care what happens with us. Whether we live till we’re 1, 10, or 100, the universe doesn’t care. Whether we get promoted to CEO or laid off and put on the streets, the universe doesn’t care. Whether our Instagram pictures get 20 likes or 2000 likes, the universe doesn’t care. We get born, we live our life, and then we disappear forever. And the universe doesn’t care.
The insignificance of our existence cannot be overstated.
“How the hell is this supposed to be enlightening if you’re telling me that nothing matters and that my life is worthless. What’s even the point then?”
We’ll get there I promise. Keep reading.
Once we start seeing life as a short blink of insignificance, then embracing the present moment is easy…because it’s all we have. What we don’t have is immortality. Our ego, our pride, even our sense of self-worth, they all die with us at the end no matter what we do. He who dies with the most toys, still dies. So why do we spend so much time and energy building those things up? Why do we stress and worry about trivial things that won’t make a difference in the end? Eventually we die and we stop existing and the universe continues as if we were never in it. Yet we never think of it this way. We never think of it this way because 71 years seems like a lot of time so excuses get made, things get procrastinated, and concerns get misaligned.
Our skewed perception of how long we have to live and how much we matter causes us to worry about the wrong things. We derive our happiness from our ego, forgetting that our ego is more fragile than a paperclip holding a double-decker bus. Our concerns gravitate towards things we can’t control, and we get confused why our mood is so volatile. We experience unexpected death around us, and suddenly our purpose in life starts to get muddled. Let me drive this point home.
I want you to let go of any other thoughts and just for a second fast-forward to your death bed. To the very end of the movie. It might be when you’re 94 after a long successful life. It might be tomorrow laying on the asphalt because a drunk driver made a mistake and got in a car. It might be 5 years from now in hospice care when cancer is on the verge of winning. It might be on the side of a trail seconds after a heart attack. It might be in front of your kids. It might be by yourself. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. And neither do you. But I want you to imagine it. Put yourself there and ask yourself:
What matters now?
Years of built up plans and imaginations, years of put off promises, years of thinking that you have time. And now you’re out of time.
What matters now?
Let me bring this full circle and get to the positive part. To the part that has changed how I live.
What’s the point of living if we die? What’s the point of living if the human race as a whole will probably die. Why can’t I just quit my job, do a lot of drugs, and say fuck it to life? What’s the goal of life? Here’s my stance:
To look back from your death bed and have lived as many beautiful present moments as possible.
Not pictures of those moments. Not Facebook or Snapchat posts about those moments. Not to still be dreaming about doing those moments. No. The goal is to look back and to have lived them. Entirely. As many as possible. This is the point of life. Once we accept death, once we accept that life is not meant to be lived forever, but to be in lived in the present, we can free ourselves from so many things that tie us down. What people think of us. What people expect of us. What we’re “supposed” to do. What we’re peer pressured to do. What society pressures us to do. All of this hails in comparison to the scale of the universe and the permanence of death. When death can be around the corner, our priorities get realigned the way they should be. When we live in the present, we take complete responsibility of our happiness. And when we keep the end in mind, we can make a movie worth watching.
I am not saying that you should stop following rules and become a rogue human who rips through society with no conscious or moral obligations. This would be a sociopath. Do not become a sociopath. What I’m saying is to let go of this obsession that we’re significant. Let go of this assumption that we have time. Let go of the little trivial things that don’t matter. Let go of anything that won’t matter when you’re at your death bed. And embrace those 12 seconds. Because in the end that’s all we have.
Life lends us time and then at the end it takes it back. We don’t get to keep it. We don’t get to take it with us. And we don’t get to decide when it runs out. All we can control is what we do with it. So when the moment comes when life asks for its time back, make sure you have something to show for it. Make sure you spent life in the present because anything outside of that, doesn’t even matter.
A huge shoutout to Erik Fellenstein for the wonderful conversation that spurred the writing of this piece. It’s amazing what happens when you put two drinks in front of two deep thinkers who talk too much. Go check him out, he’s a rad guy. And if you need something more light-hearted after being reminded about death for 6 minutes, check out the rest of my blog
