Celebrate Your Significance

Who is in control?

Of course, as good life coaches, we would argue that this is within your control and then ask what goals you have set to bring about the kind of change you want to experience?

But even life coaches will freely admit that the world is unpredictable, and sometimes even the best laid plans of mice and men can, well … go awry!

Unpredictable and uncertain

And boy, saying that our world is unpredictable and uncertain at the moment is to demonstrate a mastery of understatement.

But the issue here is not so much the unpredictability of the world around us, as the mindset that we choose to approach that unpredictability with.

Embracing our own significance

Put another way, this is about the degree to which we appreciate and embrace our own significance and relevance in the world – or not, as the case may be!

Let me put this into context with a personal experience.

Memories of a defining moment

Recently, after a mini house cleanup, I dropped off a box of unwanted books at a local charity shop. As I turned to go, my eyes quickly scanned the rather dusty and overstuffed shelves around me.

A book with a rather unusual cover aroused my curiosity. I prised it out and started paging through it.

As I did so, I was transported back to a time that many consider to be a defining moment for our world.

The date was September 11th, 2001 and the event was the horrifying destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York by terrorists who had hijacked passenger airplanes to use as flying bombs.

Special significance

‘9-11’ as it is called, holds special significance for me.

That morning, I had departed London on a Continental Airlines flight bound for Cleveland in the US. My flight was in mid-Atlantic when the tragedy unfolded.

The US acted quickly to close down its airspace and, along with some 30 other flights, our plane was diverted to Newfoundland in Canada. Dubbed ‘The Plane People’ by the friendly but bemused locals, we found ourselves holed up in St Johns for five long and agonising days.

What an experience that was!

Triggering the memories

The book that triggered these memories was a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer called Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

The plot involves nine-year-old Oskar Schell, who has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Centre on the morning of September 11.

As I paged through the book I was drawn to one particular section. It speaks powerfully to those who, perhaps overwhelmed by the unpredictability and uncertainty of our world, come to doubt the significance and relevance of their lives.

What follows is a short extract from that book:

Extract from Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

I read the first chapter of A Brief History Of Time when Dad was still alive, and I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn’t even matter if I existed at all.

When Dad was tucking me in that night and we were talking about the book, I asked if he could think of a solution to that problem.

“What problem?”

“The problem of how relatively insignificant we are.”

He said, “Well, what would happen if a plane dropped you in the middle of the Sahara Desert and you picked up a single grain of sand with tweezers and moved it one millimetre?”

I said, “I’d probably die of dehydration.”

He said, “I just mean right then, when you moved that single grain of sand. What would that mean?”

I said, “I dunno, what?”

He said, “Think about it.”

I thought about it. “I guess I would have moved a grain of sand.”

“Which would mean?”

“Which would mean I moved a grain of sand?”

“Which would mean you changed the Sahara.”

“So?”

“So? So the Sahara is a vast desert. And it has existed for million of years. And you changed it!”

“That’s true!” I said, sitting up. “I changed the Sahara!”

“Which means?” he said. “What? Tell me.”

“Well, I’m not talking about painting the Mona Lisa or curing cancer. I’m just talking about moving that one grain of sand one millimetre.”

“Yeah?” “If you hadn’t done it, human history would have been one way …”

“Uh-huh?”

“But, you did do it, so …?”

I stood on the bed, pointed my fingers at the fake stars, and screamed: “I changed the universe!”

“You did.”

Time for reflection

My hope is that, as it did for me, reading this extract will cause you to stop what you are doing and reflect on just how significant your own life is.

It’s my belief that each of us has a role to contribute to the growth and evolution of our planet and our universe.

Whether you do so by teaching young people, caring for old people, building homes, alleviating poverty, protecting wildlife, enhancing the beauty of nature, coaching people to achieve their goals and dreams, or any other means, I suggest your role is far more significant than you probably realise or would like to admit.

Celebrate your significance

So, before you get immersed back in your day-to-day routine, please take a little time out to pause and celebrate your significance!

You’re worth it!