This Incredible Difference

I see this response in a lot of people, so I guess I am perfectly average and normal for even thinking I don’t measure up. But look at the other side of this feeling. Why does it matter that there are people I fully expect to apologize to me for their behaviors? Why should they? Why should I be significant enough to them that they should care? Why should it matter to them that they did something to hurt me? Why is it that I want to be significant to them? The guy who says he is just a guy, one of billions, who probably doesn’t deserve one person’s love and devotions, suddenly feels that he should be significant. That he should matter to someone else. How do I reconcile this incredible difference? How do I accept that someone cares for me as deeply as they do? Or how do I accept that I am not significant? That there are people who will hurt me and I won’t matter to them? How do I accept that there are people who will not care about me? Maybe there are just billions of crazy people on this rock, and maybe I am just one of them.

Billions People

Billions. As in the number of people who inhabit this fair planet (we don’t have any other choice). Estimates put the number of humans on the planet somewhere around 6,867,800,000 (I have no idea how we managed an even number). I could go on and on about how big that number really is. The point here is not about the astounding number of people walking on this rock. It is about the significance of one person on this rock. I don’t mean celebrity or leader significance either. I am talking one perfectly normal average person (like me or the majority of my readers) who does not stand in front of millions for whatever reason a person chooses to stand there. How does one perfectly normal average person become someone incredibly significant? I don’t mean just a little significant. I mean like the entire world to someone else? If you think there is some personal experience happening here, you are on the right track. Giving birth to a child makes a woman the entire world to that child and that child has the potential to become so significant...

Significant to that woman that she will willingly give her life to insure the child is not even harmed. What about adults who are not related? How do we become so significant to each other that we would do the same thing? Or even lesser significances. I hate causing harm to anyone anywhere. I hate that I did something that caused someone intense emotional pain. I was that significant to her. But who am I actually? What sets me apart from the billions of other men to her? Why did I matter so much? I try to tell her I am just a guy. It does not matter. To her I become someone truly significant and I was unable to be what she wanted and needed. I feel certain if I had stayed with her I would have hurt her far more than she could handle and I could not live with myself if I had done that. I have difficulty seeing myself as a person who deserves to have someone love and care me for so much like that.