Act As If What You Do Makes a Difference. It Does.

Everything you do matters. From the little mundane things to the great big things. From what your job is to what you do outside of your job. Every action, every interaction, every breath you take matters. YOU matter. YOU make a difference. You make a difference to everyone you come in contact with. You have the choice of whether that interaction is a positive one or a negative one. You have the choice of making a positive impact on the world or a negative impact, of lifting people up or tearing them down, of being kind and generous or of being unkind and selfish.

Sometimes it can be easy to feel like we don’t really matter and that we don’t make a difference, both in the big scheme of things and the small scheme of things. We can feel lost and alone. We can feel like we are one tiny puzzle piece in a heaping pile of other pieces with nobody to connect to.

But just like a puzzle, we are a small but very important piece to something much bigger than ourselves. Without us, the picture would be incomplete. We may not always understand what our role is, what our God given gift is, where we belong. But really, that doesn’t matter. As long as we wake up each and every day knowing that what we do, that all of our actions make a difference to one or to many people, we are on the right track. This is true in work, whether you are in a helping profession or not, because even if it doesn’t seem like you are making a difference, you are. From the nurse to the waitress to the accountant to the bus driver to the gas station attendant to the electrician to the teacher to the stay at home mom. All of those people are very important in the large scheme of things. This life wouldn’t function the same if one of those jobs or careers was missing from our society. They are an important piece of the larger puzzle.

And just as they are important to the larger picture, they are even more important to those puzzle pieces closest to them. When a puzzle piece is missing, sure you may be able to look at it from a far and know what the picture is of, but when you look down close at just those few puzzle pieces surrounding the missing one, all of a sudden it doesn’t make sense anymore. Your job definitely makes an impact on the big picture, but the greatest impact you can make, the place where you can make the biggest difference starts small. It starts with your family. It starts with your friends. But even more basic than that, it starts with strangers. It starts with a smile. It starts with a kind heart. You can be doing the most boring, most mundane thing. You could hate what you do as a job. But if you treat every interaction as if you can make a difference in someones life, you can and you will. It’s not necessarily WHAT you do that makes a difference, it’s WHO you are. If you are a kind, loving, generous person who breathes life into other people you will have such a fulfilling life and you will make this world a better place. If on the other hand, you are the opposite of those things and suck the life and spirit out of people, you will still be making a difference….it just won’t be a positive one.

So smile a little more. Love a little more – both yourself and others. Be a little more kind and a little less judgmental. Laugh. Sing. Find those things that make you happy and try to include as much of it in your life as you can. When your light shines, it will shine into others. And then that overwhelming pile of tiny individual puzzle pieces will turn into this beautiful picture, a beautiful world and a beautiful life.