Significance

“My friends were little men—like the Führer himself. These ten men were not men of distinction. They were not men of influence. They were not opinion-makers. Nobody ever gave them a free sample of anything on the ground that what they thought of it would increase the sales of the product. Their importance lay in the fact that God—as Lincoln said of the common people—had made so many of them.”

“And when I say, “little men,” I mean not only the men for whom the mass media and the campaign speeches are everywhere designed but, specifically in sharply stratified societies like Germany, the men who think of themselves in that way. Every one of my ten Nazi friends…spoke again and again during our discussions of…we little people.” – Milton Mayer (They Thought The Were Free: The Germans, 1933-1945, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1955.)

Like it or not, most of us are average. Carl Gauss, the ground-breaking German mathematician, demonstrated that random independent variables (that includes us) added together normally result in what we call a “bell curve.” Most of us fall close to the mean, or average. We might like to think of ourselves as exceptional or outstanding, but in reality, few of us are. Even among our so-called leaders, only a very few are excellent, and most would be well advised to admit that and just do their best not to be incompetent. While some have claimed to know more than others or have savior-like abilities worthy of national monuments, perhaps they had better wait for posterity to be the judge.

We all want to “make a difference” or at least be part of a cause greater than ourselves. We all think about having power, wealth, or fame from time to time. Regrettably, when some of us don’t get these things, they lie to gain a position, commit fraud or outright theft, or even shoot someone for a little notoriety. After all, these things are easy to get if one doesn’t mind bending or breaking the law to get them. The more difficult route is to do good work and develop good character.

I suppose we all resist the thought that we are insignificant. Yet, we all are. I am only one of over 8 billion people on the planet. And there are trillions of species other than humans. We live on a small planet circling a small star on the outskirts of one of billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars. The oldest of us only live a little over 100 years. The known universe is 14-15 billion years old. In the scheme of things, we are not as significant as we might believe. As Carl Sagan has suggested, we fight over who will be in control of a few tracts of land on a tiny blue dot without understanding that our significance might lie elsewhere.

Those of us who believe are reassured we are significant to God. Some of us have achieved a measure of significance through our work. I write this to hang on to a small sense of significance, realizing that not long after I’m gone, my thoughts will fade to insignificance. We only remember a few names from the past and since I have not conquered any lands, invented anything world-changing, or inherited a title, mine will not be among them. I am one of the little men, but I refuse to tie my destiny to anyone who claims only they have all the answers.

We all want to feel significant. We are all little people struggling with our significance in this world. But this struggle does not give us license to latch on to would-be kings and dictators or to ideologies that crush other little people so we can get ahead.

I have attended enough funerals to learn that the significance we can achieve has more to do with raising kind and thoughtful children, teaching other people’s children how to think for themselves, dealing fairly with people, leading a life of integrity and service, and in general being the kind of person who deserves a loving eulogy. Our significance will not be measured in conquests or net worth or the number of trophies we have won.

Greyfriars Bobby comes to mind. So does Hachiko. Significance is being the kind of person your dog will wait for, even after you’re gone, even if they go before you. Significance is being the kind of person your children and friends will hope to see again.