I spent some time today listening to Angela Maiers ted talk on people mattering to each other. Maiers reminds her audience that it is a simple step to remind people that they matter, but it is something that few of us bother to do. Why? Because often few of us realize or even reflect on our own mattering. I have some objections or reframing to those arguments. I believe most of us feel like we matter to someone. I feel like we don’t entirely recognize how or even that we matter beyond that tiny circle we define as either our family or our close acquaintances.
This blog is proof that I want to matter to someone outside of the handful of people who still love me. I write for ten minutes every day but I don’t have to publicize it. Today I reactivated the facebook stream that reminds people who are my facebook friends that I’ve said something. I did so because it is important to me that I matter in some sense. I am a writer and I don’t think you can be a writer–published or otherwise–and not want to matter to someone outside of yourself or small circle of friends.
Knowing that it is important that we know we matter is going to be a fundamental tenet of my class this semester, because I have noticed that people believe they matter especially less during voting season. I hope to change that philosophy for them and for these students to go out and change that philosophy for someone else.