the mattering
We wake with a question simmering
Quietly behind our eyes.
It pulses with every interaction,
A thousand answers filter through;
We toss each atop a heap of confirmations
Of what we already believe to be truth
According to our most wonderful and terrible companion: self-awareness.
“Do I matter?”
We whisper to our mind
Looking everywhere but within us for the answer.
“When I walk into a room of mattering people
Am I just taking up space?
Floating without weight or purpose?
Maybe if I’m good at something I’ll matter,
If I hone a skill
Like a sense of humor or basketball or piano,
They’ll like me or envy me or both.
Maybe if I’m athletic enough to win trophies and medals
Everyone will come over and look at them and think,
‘Look at all these things that prove she matters.’
Or I’d probably matter if I were smart,
And obviously beautiful
So if I could just make myself more so,
Find the right books and podcasts and opinions,
Find the right regimens and workouts and creams,
Figure out my colors, accentuate my best features,
Then they’ll notice me,
They’ll see me—
I’ll matter.”
But sometimes, when we lose our mattering,
The question starts feeling like an accusation,
The mattering morphs into a competition.
Our eyes narrow at our fellow man,
Our fellow competitors—
Because when they seem so full of mattering,
That must mean we don’t matter at all.
This is the lie of the scarcity of the mattering.
It will destroy you.
Because when everyone is trying to matter,
when we are all blindfolded by the mission to prove our own worth,
We miss the desperation in our neighbor.
If we could just stop trying so damn hard,
Stop jockeying for position for one second,
We might notice each other’s eyes feverishly searching for validation and
Instead of questing for our own,
Instead of measuring ourselves against their insecurities,
We could generously whisper to the question in others—
“You are good
Your very presence is important.
You matter.
You matter to me.”
And then,
What if we just believed our mattering was innate,
That we matter because we exist
And we don’t have to matter MORE,
Especially more THAN,
That life is not a competition to see who matters most,
But a gift that is enjoyed WITH the other mattering people,
Not in spite of them.
We don’t have to prove anything to anyone or wait for someone else’s approval to know that
Our very breath proves it once and for all.
If we are breathing, we are mattering.
If you breathe, you matter.
