- Jack: Lemon, if you were about to say that you don’t get any respect, you’re right. I mean, in a post-apocalyptic world, how would society even use you?
- Liz: Traveling bard.
- Jack: Radiation canary.
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I spend a lot of time questioning my worth to society. I mean, it's not like I go to bed at night and literally ask myself How did I contribute to society today? But I realize that at the back of my mind I'm always feeling sort of useless, and that a lot of the guilt and pressure I put on myself is a result of this feeling of uselessness.
I feel like I should be giving back to society because I have been given so many advantages in this society. First off, I was born into a first-world country, where certain measures of safety and security are taken for granted. And I was pretty much born with every possible advantage anybody could have. I mean, sure, my family was neither rich nor well-connected, but they were educated and financially stable. I had parents who were selfless and devoted, and who made their children's education their first priority. I went to good schools (public schools, BTW), and had good teachers. It was a given that I would go to college, and my family made that happen financially. And when I got married, I married a man who came from the same sort of advantageous background. And now we have a home in the suburbs, insurance, and enough money to afford the things we need. We have a son who is growing up with the same advantages we did. And should anything ever go wrong, we have a giant support system to fall back on.
We are so, so lucky.
I think one of the advantages of being educated in a very diverse public school system was that I was aware, from a very young age, that there were people who weren't as lucky as I was. I remember the PTA had to take this one kid to get a haircut, and another girl to get glasses. I found out later that some kids even had to be taken to the nearby high school to take showers in the gym locker room. And while my selfish little elementary school brain couldn't process concepts like privilege and gratitude, I think I have always known that I came into this world in a pretty lucky place.
But I always feel like I should be using the advantages I've been given in order to give back. And I think I more or less fail at giving back on a daily basis.
Obviously, it's hard for most of us to give back on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes it feels like it's all you can do to get yourself and your dependents through the day. Sure, you're making a difference each day to your family and/or your employer, but can you really say you're changing the world?
Now, we all know that there are very, very few people who can exact large-scale change in the world. Unless you're the president or Bill Gates or Mother Teresa, you probably aren't making large-scale, global change. For the rest of us, all we can hope is that we can make a tiny difference to somebody, somewhere.
But I feel like I usually fail at even making small-scale change. Sure, I give people money for their charity walk-a-thons. And I try to say and do little things to make improvements in people's days, like when I complimented the worker at the Wendy's drive-thru on her eyeshadow last week. I try to be a patient driver on the road. I offer to babysit. I make pies. I use reusable canvas grocery bags.
Still, most of the time I feel like a useless waste of space. I wonder, how am I giving back to the world?
All of this is a really long introduction to tell you about how I think I made a difference this week.
See, on Monday I wrote this blog post about depression. I wasn't planning on writing it, and I sure as hell wasn't planning on sharing it on Facebook. It felt too personal. It's weird how you have no problem putting your innermost thoughts and feelings out there for a nameless, Faceless Internet, but the idea of sharing it with 200 of your closest family and friends seems scary.
But I felt like I had to share. I know I have Facebook friends who struggle with depression, some of which I know about and some of which I'm sure I don't. I needed to share for their sake, so people would know that they're not alone. So people would know it's not their faults.
I got two really special e-mails in response to that post. I'm not going to go into detail about them because I don't want to give identifying information about the senders, but both made me cry. Both said thank you for posting this. One said It was meant to be for you to post that today.
Others on Facebook just said thank you. And I like to think that there were more people who were touched by that post, some I know and some I don't.
Now, I don't want to make it seem like I have delusions about my level of influence in the world. I know this is the 23,654th most popular blog on the Technorati list. I'm not reaching the whole world.
But that day, I reached a few people. And I like to think that those people will now have a little bit more courage to share their feelings with a few more people. (And no, I don't expect them to share their feelings on Facebook and/or the Internet. There's a certain level of crazy involved in wanting to be that public with your thoughts and feelings.) And if each person can reach just one more person, we'll eventually create a sort of pyramid scheme (the good kind) to bring more acceptance to mental illness.
So, on Monday, I made a difference. I didn't cure cancer or provide humanitarian aid to Darfur. (I don't actually know where Darfur is, or what exactly is going on there.) But I reached a few people. And in this giant, complicated world, making a small difference is sometimes all you can do.
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