Category: Value

How Do We Show People They Matter?

It is all too easy to think that what you do in life doesn’t really matter. After all, when you are just one person out of 8 billion, that seems pretty insignificant.

Moreover, the picture gets even more narrow if we expand the scope. Reading history, there are only a few people who have shaped the course of human history. Of all the people who have ever lived, we only know the names of a precious few. Those few have led armies, made breakthroughs, or influenced millions.

But the vast majority of people just live their lives. They are content making their small contribution to the greater whole. But do their lives matter?

This raises an important point: what does it mean for a life to matter? In order for a life to have meaning, what needs to happen?

Meaning doesn’t just come from changing the world. You don’t need to be an Alexander the Great or an Albert Einstein to be important. You just need to have an impact on the people around you — your family, your friends, your coworkers, and so on.

That’s the lesson of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, that even when you feel that your life doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme, the world would be a different place if you didn’t exist. You can’t help but matter, because your very existence has changed the world.

So how can we convey that to others? How can we tell people around us that they mean something? Something to us, something to their community? How can we show people they matter?

Related questions: How could you show your appreciation for others more? How does your identity matter? How much power does an individual have? What gives a person value?

What Change To Your Identity Have You Had To Accept?

Establishing an identity can be hard. Updating that identity can be even harder, if it means changing the way you think of yourself.

A useful exercise in self-awareness is determining who you are. That might include your values, interests, and aspirations. Once you determine who you are and who you want to become, that knowledge can help guide your actions. It can shape how you see yourself, and how you talk about yourself. As a result, that can influence how others see you.

Sometimes, though, the identity that you use to help how you think of yourself has to change. There might be several different reasons for this change — perhaps you have just evolved as a person. Or maybe health problems limit how you live your life. Cultural changes, a new job, or a personal realization can all be catalysts for change.

If your identity is equivalent to your own self, then a change to that identity might well mean that you are no longer the person you used to be. This can be difficult to accept. For all that we change over time, it is natural to think of yourself as constant and unchanging. The rest of the world might change, but not you.

As you have aged and matured, how has your personal identity changed? Has that, in turn, led to an update in how you see yourself? Have you had to accept a personal change that was a surprise or that was in some way unwelcome?

Related questions: Who are you? How have you changed? What are your values? How do you demonstrate your values?

What Do You Do When Your Personal Values Conflict With Societal Values?

Choosing the values that mean something to you is an important part of establishing a personal identity. But what happens if your values conflict with society’s?

Deciding what matters to you and what values you want to live by is something that we all must do at some point. If you value, for example, curiosity and discovery, your life may be very different than if you value financial independence.

Determining your values is not an easy task, and they may very well change over time. As you age, what is important to you might evolve, and your values will also change as a result.

The same is true for a society. What a community thinks is important and what gets collective attention and resources can vary, sometimes quite drastically. This might be influenced by a wide set of variables, including prominent individuals, technological change, international events, pop culture, and so on.

For example, in the early 1950s, space exploration was not a high priority for most. Then the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, kicking off the space race. President Kennedy then challenged our ambition, saying, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”

Values changed, and that dictated where our time, money, and energy was spent.

Given that both individuals and societies can have values and priorities, what happens when those two inevitably come into conflict?

The last ten or fifteen years have seen drastic changes to public values, which in turn has alienated or isolated people who disagreed with those changes. Is there a productive, healthy way to deal with that? How can an individual be true to what they believe in if all around them is the opposite?

Related questions: What are your values? How do you demonstrate your values? What is important? What makes a community?

Does Knowledge Have Inherent Value?

Knowing information can help in a variety of different ways. But does learning have value, even if you don’t use that knowledge in any way?

Kids attend school in their formative years, because learning is key to success. (Some kids don’t thrive in a formal learning situation, but that’s not important for this discussion.)

How is learning important?

For one, you have greater control over your situation. Knowledge helps you make better decisions, because you know more about how things work together, and how they fit into the world.

It also helps to not have to reinvent the wheel. There have been billions of people who have walked the earth before us, and in many cases, their knowledge is passed along to us. We can learn from their mistakes; no need to make them ourselves.

And learning can be fun. Experiencing an ‘Aha!’ moment when things click into place and you understand something for the first time feels good. Our brains evolved to solve problems, so using our big brains for their intended purpose feels right.

But what happens if you strip all that away?

A common complaint heard by teachers is “When am I going to use this?” And certainly, it is hard to accurately predict when something you learn might come in handy. You might very well be surprised at how often you call upon something seemingly unrelated in your life.

But what if it never comes? If you learn something that you cannot use in any way, is it still valuable? Or does knowledge only have meaning and utility in the way that it is applied?

Related questions: How do you learn? What’s the most useful thing you’ve ever learned? Why are we fascinated with the unknown? How do we know what we don’t know?

Input Or Output?

In any system, you have the raw materials that go in (input), and the finished product that comes out (output). Is one preferable to the other? Is one more important?

Share why if you wish.

Input Or Output?
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