Everyone is Important

            Earlier this week, a friend of Facebook shared an image that said, in essence, “Remember that everyone you encounter changes your life in some way.” The next day, a friend with no connection to the first shared an image saying, “Remember that you change the lives of everyone you meet.” Both say the same thing from opposite perspectives and that coincidence must have lodged in my subconscious, because look what I’m blogging about today!

            This is a view on life I’ve had from a very young age. Everyone effects everyone around them, perhaps in small ways, but even the smallest influence can be significant.

            For me, one of my best examples goes back to when I was writing my first book (not including the picture book I wrote when I was six) – around age eleven or twelve. At this point in time, I was still at the stage where I imitated other writers – in this case Brian Jacques with his anthropomorphic animal characters.

            My brother, in his first year of highschool, had a friend a few years older who was also writing a book. My brother arranged for me to swap books with this friend so we could give each other feedback. The feedback I received from this person I’d never met yet took me a huge leap forward – he gave me the confidence to stop imitating and become my own author.

            In addition, this same friend lent my brother R.A. Salvatore books, which I started reading as well. He became one of my favourite authors and those books had a huge impact on my views of the world. There are some philosophies in the books that, rereading them recently, I discovered I’d been expressing to other people almost word for word without knowing it.

            It is amazing for me to think that someone with so loose a connection to me and who I only met once (at that point in time – a decade later he started working in the same plaza as the pizza place I worked. We started chatting, realized our past connection, became friends and, eventually, my wife and I shared an apartment with him for two years) could so influence my entire life thereafter. That’s all it takes, though! Most people never realize how the most insignificant seeming thing can change the lives of people around them.

            A lot of people also wonder about their importance in the world and weather they make a difference. The answer is yes. You are important. I am important. Everyone is important. Just because you can’t see how far your reach spreads doesn’t mean you make no difference.

            Everyone’s lives are made up of a myriad of connections. Even a slight tug on a tread of their lives can cause ripples that carry on forever. So, remember that the next time you feel insignificant. Without you, the world would be an entirely different place.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.