My friend Steve and I were coming home from a White Sox versus Tigers game at old Comiskey Park. It was a warm July night during our college years. He had a summer job at the Post Office, an early shift, and a sleepless night and morning at a party he hosted.
By the time we left the stadium, he’d been awake for almost 48 hours.
I asked him if he was alert enough to drive, but he pooh-poohed my concerns. On the return trip, I noticed his car began to weave into another lane. I turned toward him. His eyes were closed. With one hand, I grabbed the steering wheel, and shook him with the other as I got the vehicle under control.
What if?
What if we died in a crash? Humanity would have lost Steve’s future as a genetic researcher of international fame who contributed to the human genome project. Of course, no one could have predicted that in 1967.
Everyone matters.
I became a clinical psychologist, a husband, a father, and a grandfather. But the accident might have ended my future, with toddlers and grandkids disappearing without lives they were never given.
My wife, whom I met a few years later, likely would have married and produced different youngsters and grandchildren. Their impact on the planet vanished because I survived the close call.
Those young ones were among an endless number of children who never were. I would have been one had my father returned from World War II thirty days after he did.
History only records what occurs, and then just part of the entire story. We cannot know the totality of our influence on others once we depart.
Yet we might have children or grandchildren who make their mark because of us. We might have nudged friends or their offspring and put our thumb on their posterity.
Van Gogh, for example, never sold a painting and had to be supported by his brother. The artist was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment and committed suicide at age 37. Most of us experience neither his profound desperation nor the ability to give birth to art that moves some to tears.
We have ways to revise and improve the world, small or large. Planting a garden, teaching, and attending a library board meeting come to mind. Loving another and seeing them in a way no one else does. Helping those in need, making charitable donations, and emigrating to a land offering multiple generations a better life.
In United States history, one cannot ignore the founders’ gift to all of us, and the slow refinement of the law produced by some of those who succeeded them.
As I waited to cross the street during college, a young lady traveled the same path a step to my right. She was lost in her conversation with a friend, unaware of the red light we faced. She entered the crosswalk in front of a speeding car. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
She was stunned and did not realize what had happened until later. Did she become a nurse, a nun, an architect, a physician, or a legislator?
Failing to learn her lesson, would she have walked into traffic again and been harmed or killed? Might this woman have touched one life, 100, or all those on the planet?
We live in a world of possibilities, but a troubled time. A single life might alter things, and the difference can be immense.
Think of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Beethoven, the Buddha, Abe Lincoln, Hannah Arendt, Moses, Margaret Atwood, Mohammed, Jesus, Virginia Wolfe, Jackie Robinson, Ernest Hemingway, Homer, Rembrandt, Marie Curie, John Lewis, Indira Gandhi, and many others.
Do not diminish your potential to impact the world. You cannot know whether your presence sets the Earth forward or backward. Do not say your existence makes no difference.
Live as if it makes all the difference.
You never know.
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The paintings of Vincent van Gogh are sourced from Wikiart.org/ The first is Irises (1889), and the second is Sower at Sunset (1888). Finally, the artist’s The Starry Night (1889).
such an incredibly powerful message and lesson. before I retired last year after many years of commuting for my teaching career, I saw many accidents and near misses and I thought about this very thing
We are in sync! I’m glad to have your thoughtful reading, Beth. Thank you.
Life can change in an instant, often from situations we have no control over. Why is someone killed by a drunk driver, when another person goes unscathed? The beauty of life is each day is an opportunity to impact someone else’s life in positive ways. It is a privilege we should never take for granted.
Incidentally, I went to my first ball game at Wrigley Field in Chicago. My parents grew up in the Chicago suburbs (Downers Grove and La Grange), though I never lived there.
You’ve touched on the randomness of events in the second sentence. No small consideration. And, as you say, to live each day as fully as we can. I’m glad you made it to Wrigley, which remains a very friendly place. It is something of a shrine for many Cubs fans. I hope they won and you stayed for the fans singing “Go Cubs Go.”
Love this reminder that everything we do touches another and has that ripple effect that can reach far and wide.
Thanks, Deb. The ripples do take us on a trip — from “Adam and Eve,” through all the matings subsequently that were necessary for us to have been born. Take good care and best on your move.
Love the reminder to “live as if it makes all the difference.” At 83 1/3, I need to be reminded some times that I can still or am still making a difference. Life is still good!
Wonderful to hear, Lois. I owe you an email. I’m running the same race and on your heels! May we both continue for a while!
I love this! None of us know how we will touch the lives of others. Becoming our most authentic selves requires honesty and courage, for it requires actions and not wistful thinking.
You are spot on, Tamara. Overthinking can be a trap. Living means engagement and action. Thank you for making this point.
Great post. Thankful you had the wherewithal to reach over and grab the wheel at the right moment. There are forks along the road of life and we take each road as it comes. I am thankful for those who have left their footprints on my life. I had a dream last night along those same lines.. have a wonderful Sunday and great week ahead.
I reacted instinctively, Clay. I was at Steve’s party by wasn’t as tired or as sleep deprived. If my eyes were closed…Your attitude about life sounds like a good one. Thank you for your kind wishes. Stay well.
Thanks for this heartfelt and empowering post, Dr. Stein. We rarely know as individuals how we may have impacted the lives of others, for good or for bad. So many people have helped me along my journey to this moment in time. As I’ve mentioned before, you are numbered among them. Yet, we have never personally met. I share your view expressed in the closing remarks: “Do not say your existence makes no difference. / Live as if it makes all the difference. / You never know.
Thank you for your very kind words, Rosaliene. I hope you know that I feel the same way. I am glad this was heartening in a most difficult moment. I am here to tell you that you do make a difference I have already experienced and witnessed. Thank you.
I appreciate your kind words, Dr. Stein.
Many thanks, Dr. Stein, for your wise words and the paintings!
You are very welcome, Martina. I have learned much about visual art just by taking the time to offer the images I choose for my posts. That you appreciate them adds to my incentives. Be well, Martina.
Wow – what an incredible essay on impact. I love your paragraph,
“We have ways to revise and improve the world, small or large. Planting a garden, teaching, and attending a library board meeting come to mind. Loving another and seeing them in a way no one else does. Helping those in need, making charitable donations, and emigrating to a land offering multiple generations a better life.”
So good. Live as if it makes all the difference in the world. Brilliant!
You are most kind, Wynne. If I needed an agent, I’d sign you up! Thank you.
I am adding this to my favorites among your compendium of blog posts. Your story at the crosswalk and the idea of “what if”? reminds me of an old Star Trek episode, City on the Edge of Forever, where McCoy saves Edith Keeler from dying in an auto accident which has an unintended ripple effect through history. I have a hunch you have unknowingly saved other lives in your line of work and through your thoughtful words you put out into the world each week.
I have a strong recollection of that episode, Evelyn. Some of the best television includes provocative moral lessons, as that one did. It asked us to think about the value of a single life (who Kirk loved and who could have been saved) vs. the much larger group of deaths that would have followed unintentionally from Edith Keeler’s survival. As you know, this is called “the trolley problem” by philosophers. Much thanks for your kind words.