Meaningless! Meaningless!
These words have gone through my head a lot over the past couple of weeks. The words of Solomon. Everything is meaningless. The sun will always rise the next day. There is nothing we can do to stop it. I am thinking about this because I wonder often what type of impact I have made. Have I made a meaningful change in people’s hearts? Do I impact the area around me in a positive way or a negative way? Do I even make an impact? I wonder this because what I do on a normal day feels meaningless. It doesn’t feel like I make an impact on the world around me. If I am not there the job will still get done. The product that I ship will still get shipped. The product I once built still gets built. The pizza I used to make still gets made and it still gets delivered. People are still getting their paper on Saturday morning even though I stopped doing that long ago. They are all meaningless. There is no meaning behind them. Those things aren’t my passion. I didn’t change lives by just making pizzas or building units. Those jobs aren’t and weren’t my passion. Having knowledge of how to do these different things isn’t meaningful. I wish it was, but it isn’t. And yeah I get the “Oh, but think about the family you are making the pizza for.” or the “But think about the trucker that you are helping.” The truth of the matter is that is still going to happen whether I am there or not. It isn’t going to change anything. I find it difficult to move on from things because I place too much value on them. It is wasted energy. “Well, I don’t want to quit this job because I don’t want to hurt the people I work with.” The truth is I have seen countless people come and go from the same job, and it didn’t affect me, so how is going to impact the people I am concerned about hurting. “Well, I deserve this because I know how to do this job and that job.” Someone is going to come along and learn the same jobs that you know and know what you know.
No, what I am starting to find meaningful is seeing people’s lives change. Seeing people smile like they haven’t smiled in years. Laughing so hard that you become a laughing potato. Laughing on the floor and starting to tear up because your gut is starting to hurt. I am finding meaning in being with people that are there for the good and the bad times. I am finding meaning in things that aren’t centered around earning money or are focused on giving money to those in need. Where helping a friend chase their dream is far more valuable than anything I could buy for myself. Where donating to a children’s hospital fills my heart more than any new game could. Where listening to a friend in pain is more important than boasting about what I have accomplished. I will know that this book series is a success not when it sells a million copies or a hundred copies, but when I have just one person come up and tell me about how the books played a role in turning their life around. Where they didn’t feel alone and stepped back from whatever ledge they were on and started to see their future grow brighter. Where they felt the strength to reach out for help. To gain anything on this earth is meaningless, but to gain a friend in Heaven is far more valuable than any number in a bank account. To save a soul is priceless. The struggle is treating meaningless things as such. Putting emotion into meaningless things can bring hatred and anger. Putting emotion into a person’s soul brings out kindness and love. Acting to save looks different from acting to win. In talking about the sense of a superhero you want them to win. The crowd sees them winning. They believe that they will be saved if the hero comes out victorious. But acting to save can also result in defeat. It can result in a hero dying, but they still save the small child by blocking the bullet. Winning is meaningless. Saving a soul, though isn’t. Seeing through the anger and rage to see the hurt and pain. To know to reach out in love and risk getting hurt to save them is not meaningless. To take a leap to provide a service to a community that needs it isn’t meaningless. To take a chance at doing something that may seem reckless to try and help people isn’t meaningless. Spinning your wheels in the same rut day after day is though. Trying to fit in with a society that lashes out in anger when it doesn’t get its way is meaningless. If you think I am referring to one side over the other then you missed the point. I am far from perfect and I never will be. To worry about what goes on in the world will only bring pain and anxiety. Love isn’t meaningless though. Loving your neighbor isn’t meaningless. I know that I struggle with it though. To love your enemies is hard, but love can triumph over any other emotion. It quells anger and rage. It restores broken things and it creates life. Life is meaningless without love. To act without love is meaningless. Why dig a hole through a mountain range if you don’t have a purpose behind it. It would be meaningless without love. Love first because anger is meaningless. Rage is meaningless. Fight fire with water, not fire. That only works on forest and field fires. Rage doesn’t quell rage. It only feeds it. To everyone that reads this and supports this project I truly do love you and I am beyond grateful for the support.