Lessons on contribution & impact
Lessons on contribution & impact
Assuming we aren't needed, or haven't made a big enough impact.
Trigger Warning: Suicide
I often think that nothing I do has any impact on anyone else. That I'm not making any kind of useful contribution or that most of the activities I engage in are really for my benefit and not for anyone else's. But today I want to share two small stories that really made me rethink this assumption.
The first is about the contribution someone else made. I volunteered at a plant nursery for about six months. During my time there, volunteers came and went. We had a mix of volunteers from all backgrounds and the nursery was paired with the welfare system in Australia so that some volunteers were doing mandatory hours to receive their payments.
Straight away I recognised one volunteer (an older, truly voluntary volunteer) as being ANNOYING as hell. I didn't want to work on the days she worked and I most definitely didn't want to get stuck listening to her talk! I never agreed with anything she said, but she took a liking to me, inviting me to sit with her on breaks, something I tried my best to avoid and eventually I rescheduled my days so that I didn't show up at the same time as her. In this way I clearly clocked the negative contribution she was providing to my experience. But the positive contribution of another was a slower realisation.
One of the young guys doing mandatory volunteer work for his welfare payment was quiet, calm and friendly. He was always amiable and positive. He wasn't over the top enthusiastic, he certainly wasn't loud or fun. But he was almost like the absence of all negativity. He never complained and he never said anything mean, negative or rude. He was welcoming to everyone. Because he was doing mandatory hours he was there all day, every day, while the nursery was open. So much so, that I never really thought about what the nursery would be like without him.
That is, until he was done with his mandatory six months. Faced with the prospect of going on without him there, we all realised how much of a pillar and main-stay of the nursery experience he had become. What was so unique about this to me, was that he hadn't done anything above and beyond what anyone else was doing. His contribution was not larger. He didn't work harder. He simply showed up to the job, as himself and we all gained so much from him doing so.
On one of his last days, on break in the tea-room, I made a point to say to him that we couldn't imagine the experience without him and to point out how wonderful it was that he could have that impact, just by being himself. To be honest, I think I embarrassed him a little, but I am glad I said something. I am glad I recognised his contribution and I think he gained some confidence in himself over the six months of regularly showing up and I hope my recognition of his wider impact helped cement that for him in some small way.
The thought I took away from this experience was, "Wow, am I making this kind of impact in ways I didn't even realise?". I think we all underestimate the impact we can have by being patient, calm, kind and just ourselves. We think to contribute to society means doing something huge, solving some kind of world problem, leading the charge. We don't see that just by being decent we can become an important part of work we are already doing. We can contribute to others in meaningful ways purely through our demeanour and commitment.
The second story is much sadder, and involves discussion of mental health and suicide.
This is not meant to be a story where I attempt to make someone else's death about me, or assume anything about someone I didn't really know. But witnessing this, did cause me to have another realisation about human connection & contribution that I think is really important to share.
When I was at university, taking an art class, there was a very cool guy. He was fashionable and interesting looking, and clearly was further along in his degree than I was in mine. He knew all the tutors already and seemed to be taking this first year drawing class, just as a way to catch-up on a class he had missed, to complete his degree requirements. His drawings were always really interesting.
I thought this guy was cool and interesting, and I wanted to be his friend. But I stopped myself. I told myself I wasn't cool enough to be his friend, that he probably had heaps of other cooler friends than me and I never really talked to him. Being an "uncool" kid in high school I still have my hang ups over perceived social hierarchy which I know is crap and I will probably talk about some more in another post. But in this case it resulted in a mental barrier between us that I couldn't really find a way to breach.
I was friends with a girl in the class and she became friendly with Mr. Cool so we did sit together and chat a couple times, especially towards the end of the semester and we followed each other on Instagram. But I still always felt embarrassed of myself in some way and never had the confidence to try to be closer, outside of class friends with Mr. Cool.
A few months later, after the class had ended, I saw a somewhat concerning post from Mr. Cool on his instagram story, he was considering dropping out to deal with his mental health. From my own struggles with mental health I knew in my experience, that would have been a bad move for me, as finding myself with nothing to occupy my time can lead straight into a downward spiral instead of giving me the space I think I need to recover. So I responded to the story and gently questioned how they thought it would help. The response I got, felt quite defensive so I left it be and just sent a message about how I was free to catch up over the summer if they wanted.
I never received a response and a couple of months later I was attending his funeral. I don't claim to know what was going on for him, and I certainly don't claim it was something I could have changed. But it did make me think, that if someone I saw as too cool for me to talk to, might have needed someone to talk to more than anything, then maybe I shouldn't be stopping myself from making connections.
I shouldn't be assuming people have heaps of friends and everything under control and no need for me to reach out. I shouldn't assume that I'm superfluous or unwanted when I haven't been told, or made to believe that I am. Maybe if someone like me shows up to class, hoping to make new friends, then others despite their appearances, may also be showing up and hoping for the same thing. We tend to see the world as a place where everyone else is succeeding and our struggles, failures, hopes and fears as unique to us. If instead, we could see everyone as struggling, failing, trying, hoping and hiding just as much as us, I wonder how much easier it would make it to connect and to understand the contribution we are able to make to each other.
Do you feel like nobody notices what you do? How can the way you show up be having an impact beyond what you realise?
Is there someone who had big impact on you? Did you ever tell them?