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How can one life matter – how can my life matter? Many of us have paused during our busy lives to pose this question and others like it. But how do you answer such as question? For myself, before I look for answers, I have to grapple with the question itself.

The act of asking this question implies that one’s life should matter, can matter, and does matter. Webster tells us the word ‘matter’ can be defined as something “of importance, significance, consequence, or meaning.” So, this question, in its essence, is a search for meaning.

I believe that all of us in our early years, as we looked wide-eyed to the future, wished for that to be true – that our lives would be meaningful, consequential. Yet, as the years pass, the grind of life can raise doubts about the significance of one life in this sea of others. Marlin Brando put a voice to such doubt many years ago in the movie On the Waterfront when he anguished, “I coulda been somebody.”

I think the question itself and Marlin Brando’s lament are focused in the wrong direction. They are outward-looking – seeking to find value or meaning in life by how others measure it. Of course, we would all like our lives to matter, but to whom? When we are young, the importance of our lives is reflected by family, friends, and workmates. We sense the value of our own lives by the contributions we make to and with others. But what sustains that sense as we age, when connections to others diminish by distance, loss, and retirement? From whom is one’s sense of worth gathered then?

A search for meaning is often a search for validation from someone outside yourself, be it a family member, friend, or religious leader. Yet, it seems that a focus on external measures of a life’s worth is perilous and subject to change with the tides. A life that matters is measured from the inside by small, seemingly insignificant moments – in a wonder-filled gaze at a star-filled sky, in conversation with an elderly neighbor, in the clasp of a child’s hand as you walk, and in a smile given and received. In quiet moments, we need no proclamations to know our worth. We are each a pebble cast into the sea of life, creating ripples that pass to the horizon. Who is to say to what shore these pulses of our lives will travel?

Kevin Deeny