A friend shared a Carl Sagan quote with me the other day. I’d like to share the first bit of it. It read as follows: “Who are we, if not measured by our impact on others?” I had a weird feeling when I read this. I was simultaneously in agreement and also, I got a chill down my spine. Why? Well, in many ways, it’s a fraught concept because there are two intertwined ideas at play.
I have written often about not worrying as much about what others think about us. I have pondered the notion of living in a space where we move forward considering our actions in the context of our own moral compass, dreams, hopes and capabilities, and not so much how others are going to judge us. I would even go so far as to say that I’ve advocated for not caring as much what others think of you in the broadest sense.
I think that constantly worrying about what other people think traps you in a paradigm of endlessly seeking approval and often making decisions that are detrimental to your own mental health and well-being.
But then, of course, there is the minor issue of never caring about others or your impact on others. That’s a pretty terrifying thought. You know what I’m going to say now, but I can’t help myself. I just can’t. If you want to see what it looks like when you don’t give a shit about your fellow humans, you needn’t look further than your own backyard. The United States is currently a shining example of rugged individualism in the most pervasive and destructive fashion.
How do we find the middle of these two worlds? How do we look at our impact on others and be mindful of such things, particularly where our legacy is concerned, without making every single move we make contingent upon the thought of approval?
Okay, okay, I think I need to share the rest of the quote before I move on. Here goes: “That’s who we are, we’re not who we say we are, we’re not who we want to be- we are the sum of the influence and impact that we have in our lives, on others.”
Does that change things at all? Maybe. Maybe not.
I actually don’t love the rest of the quote. I’m not sure I love the beginning of the quote, but I really don’t love the end of it. Maybe there’s an application that I can get behind, but the general sentiment is one that I struggle with, because it rests our identity in the hands of others.
What if we know ourselves fully and that knowing doesn’t require input from others? And I don’t mean that in the sense of blasting through the world, arrogantly and disconnected. I mean we’ve found comfort in our own skin. We know our strengths and weaknesses. We understand what we are still working on and the things we have to accept, and we’ve found a sort of peace with it all. Does this quote tell us that when we’ve gotten to that place of equilibrium, it only matters if someone agrees with that sense of peace? Does this quote tell us that if we find someone who disagrees with our assessment, then we must question our judgment and sense of self?
How does the quote stand up during a time, such as this, where we are inundated by propaganda and misinformation? If someone has wholeheartedly subscribed to some doctrine that they’ve been fed and they elect to reject anything and everything that doesn’t align with that thinking, are we to consider this a solid point from which to analyze our sense of self?
I guess what I’m asking is if we can trust the judgment of others. I know, I’m spiraling here. I am delving deep into the world of can we trust other people. I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole, but here we are. This is where we live now. And we do, live here, now. There is a huge part of my daily life that involves looking around and trying to gauge the trustworthiness of the humans who are around me. Are they rational? Do they have something reasonable to offer?
I mean, I truly understand that we cannot just see the world or ourselves from the limited point of view that is who we aspire to be. I can’t wish myself into being a better person. But I can decide that I want to be a better person and start to act like a better person and then, decide, over time, that I’m becoming a better person. I can fundamentally understand that it’s not an overnight scenario, but also, I don’t necessarily need validation to arrive at that conclusion.
All that said, there is something deeply comforting about bearing witness to your own positive impact on other people. When you have the rare opportunity to look at a situation and understand that someone has been comforted or made happy or their lives made easier by something you took part in, that’s a really special situation. Are those the moments that unilaterally determine you to be worthy? No. I think there are so many quiet and untold ways in which we shape the world around us.
What about all the times we let someone go in front of us in line, not by saying it, but by silently stepping aside? What about the ways in which we share or withhold information to protect someone’s peace in any given moment? What if we decide to just be hopeful? Just that. We did next to nothing except have faith that things are going to start to shift in the right direction. We are wordlessly manifesting joy and goodness instead of doom and gloom and in that, we are impacting the energy field around us.
I know that sounds hokey, but I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen the power of a smile. I’ve witnessed what happens when someone puts away a shopping cart in the proper place, or overtips. I’ve seen people decide to go without credit or to give credit in a way that is entirely anonymous. There’s moving garbage cans out of the road or throwing away someone else’s garbage. No one would ever know who to attribute those things to, and therefore, there’s no real way to say: see, that’s the human who deserves all the acclaim!
So, we have to rely on something else altogether. Something that is a combination of all the things. The way in which we shift the space around us and also, the way in which we shift the space within us.
Both.
So yeah, I think Carl was onto something, but didn’t quite get there. Not really.
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