2.4 billion years ago, the world was quiet. The soundless skies were a hazy orange; the atmosphere was thick with methane, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. No birds, no bees, no insects buzzing in the breeze. The days were short, and the grey-white moon hung low and large in the sky. The seas were dark and deep. No seaweed, no fish, no mollusk clinging to rocks. In the shallows, where the oceans crept up to the land, trillions of tiny bacteria clung to each other, forming slimy blue-green mats of algae. Day after day, these diligent little cells absorbed the sun and basked in its warmth. They had no idea that the tiny bubbles they released contained oxygen. And as those bubbles rose through the warm water and burst at the surface, they breathed oxygen, little by little, into a world that had never known it.
I was listening to a TED Talk the other day by Tom Chi. I loved how he described life before life on Earth. The idea that these bacteria worked away every day, photosynthesizing the sun's rays to produce oxygen. They didn’t know they were preparing the world for everything that came after: fish, forests, flies, and us.
They died without ever knowing their impact.
My conditioned brain believes that to make an impact on the world, it has to be visible and measurable. That perspective has been reinforced throughout my career - measure the return, measure the impact. If you can't measure it, if it doesn't make a tangible difference, then it’s not as valuable.
I wonder, when I see the impact other people make on the world, where do I fit into all of that? The ego wants to be something, to do something that means something, and it can only think in terms of the big and the dramatic. The habit of "I should be doing more" often finds its way bursting to life on the surface of my mind.
It's comforting to think I will never know my impact. The kind word to a stranger who couldn't find her ticket at the train station the other morning. The heartfelt thanks I gave the woman at the hotel yesterday who helped me find a quiet place to meditate.
I will never know how those moments ripple out.
At this time of year, when the days are hot and the nights are cool, flies emerge out of nowhere in my house. They throw themselves against the window, again and again, trying to find their way out. I don't kill them. Instead, I open the window and release them into the wild, and I wish them, as they fly away, to have a nice life.
That small act made a world of difference to that fly. It gets to die free: flying through open skies with wild abandon, never knowing the light could be so bright, or the breeze so strong it could lift its tiny, weightless body high above the trees.
What if the measure of an impactful life is not in the numbers, but in the countless acts of kindness across a lifetime?
Maybe that will be the measure of my life: how much love and kindness I was able to radiate out. Tiny bubbles of warmth, released into the world, changing the air in ways I may never live to see.
