Imagine you’re standing in line at a grocery store. It’s a very long line, and it seems to take an eternity for each person to get through. You came here just for a couple items, but at this rate, you almost wonder if you couldn’t do without them for another day.

At long last, you get to the counter and come face to face with a very apologetic cashier.

Who do you blame in this situation? The cashier might have just been slow, but then, it could also have been that one fellow with the full cart, or that lady with the three kids who insisted bananas were marked down on the shelf, or the old man with the hearing aid and walker. Who’s at fault for your lost time?

This is a trick question, of course. It actually doesn’t matter, so there’s no point blaming anyone.

Puny Mortals

Lets put things into perspective. You are just one of billions of people living on a massive ball of rock hurling through the vastness of space. This ball of rock doesn’t care what your name is or where you were born or what your schedule looks like today. It doesn’t care that you got rained on or that the sun’s too hot or that you’re late for work. If you get sad or angry or dead, it doesn’t notice. It just keeps rolling on through the void, and it will probably continue to do so for billions of years.

That ball of rock is located nearly a hundred million miles from the nearest star (which it happens to orbit), and that star is so massive that if the earth were to fall into it, it would barely make a ripple. That star is just one of gazillions of other stars that wouldn’t notice at all if our earth (and everyone on it) suddenly vanished. At the very most, a tiny light would wink out in someone’s telescope.

In this grand scheme of things, the fact that you’ve been inconvenienced by the inefficiencies of humanity doesn’t matter at all.

Specks to Specks

Even disregarding the vastness of the universe and how inconsequential we are compared to it, the sheer volume of humanity we coexist with here is enough to foil any notion of our own individual importance.

In our grocery store scenario, you might have felt slighted at having to wait through other people’s problems. After all, how dare that lady hold up the line by arguing over prices! Couldn’t she just accept what the cashier said and move on?

Or how dare the old man come out shopping at this hour? Doesn’t he know how slow he is? We’d all be better off if he had someone else do his shopping for him.

Or didn’t that one guy realize this was the express lane? He should have taken his cart to another line, or at least have let the others go first so they wouldn’t have to wait.

And why couldn’t the cashier move things along faster? You’re here giving her store your patronage, and she owes it to you to give you the best service possible, right?

The truth is, the only reason you would complain about any of this is because it inconvenienced you. If they had come after you in the line, you wouldn’t care at all. In the end, you’re only focusing on yourself.

But maybe the lady with the three kids is short on cash at the moment. That’s not a good situation when you have three kids. Every penny off counts right now.

Maybe the old man has no one to help him, or maybe grocery shopping is the only shred of independence he has left since his hip surgery last year.

Maybe that man with the laden cart is just as pressed for time as you are and this is the only time he could get to come here. Also, this is the fastest line, after all.

There are kids in Africa who are conscripted into fighting units by force. They are abused and desensitized to the point where they barely maintain any scrap of their humanity. If they ever get free, they’re never the same.

In focusing so completely on how much you’ve been inconvenienced, you’re inflating your petty grievance beyond anything anyone else in line (or in the world as a whole) might be dealing with. Is the fact that you just lost twenty minutes of your life really any more important than the hard struggles of others?

Embrace Inconsequentiality

The fact is, even on this comparatively minor global scale, you’re inconsequential. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s great. Once you realize you don’t matter, you free yourself from your own self-centered expectations.

Your time doesn’t matter so much, so you don’t stress about losing it. Sharing it with others becomes easier.

The insensitive things people say about you don’t matter. You’ve probably had similar thoughts about them too. They just happened to voice their notions while you were around. Knowing this makes it easier for you to forgive them, and they’ll be more likely to forgive you in turn when you speak similar words.

That person who cut you off on your way home is no longer such an inconvenience. Maybe they have an emergency. Or maybe they’re just as frustrated with the oppressive rush of evening traffic as you are.

You have less fear of what others will think, or of whether reaching out to that person will be weird, or even whether harm will come to you. Maybe things will be awkward. Maybe it will hurt. Maybe you’ll have months of medical bills afterward. Maybe you won’t. But fear will always be unpleasant, so it’s best to do away with it.

Life goes on, and when it comes to an end, none of the bills you had to pay or the time you lost in line or the things people said about you behind your back will matter. So why should any of it matter to you now?

Inconsequentiality ≠ Meaninglessness

Now, this is not to say that life is completely meaningless. Life has meaning. In many ways, it has as much meaning as you give it.

The ultimate point, however, is it’s absurd to expect anyone else to care.

So be happy where you are.

Find joy in the pleasant things this wide, grand universe has to show you.

Be kind to others. You’ll find meaning outside yourself as you do so.

Go about doing good, because as inconsequential as any of our lives may be on a global scale, there is always good to be done. There is always a life you can touch or a troubled heart you can soothe or a person you can understand when no one else will. There are always cookies to bake and jokes to tell and frowns to turn into smiles.

The only consequence any of us can really have is upon one another. What, then, will be the consequences of your short life on this earth?

If your only consequence is upon yourself, then your life truly is inconsequential when you pass on.

Thoughts? Ideas? Think I should shut up and return to wherever the heck it was I came from? Let me know in the comments! Also, please share this with your friends so they can know how inconsequential their puny lives are too. All proceeds go toward baking cookies for that elderly man who held up the line that one time. Really.

Note: A follow-up post can be found here: The Universe, German Swordsmen, and Personal Power