How Do I Really Matter?

In the afterward of his book 'Better' Atul Gawande reflected on the question "How do I really matter?" This was a question he posed to himself whilst preparing a talk for a class of medical students at Harvard Medical School. In essence he decided, you make yourself matter by becoming a positive deviant. You make yourself different from your friends, your family, your colleagues, your fellow human beings, in a way that makes something better. You deviate from the norm in a positive way.

In a more eloquent verse, Ralph Whitman says essentially the same thing in his poem "O Me O Life." Ending with the verse(s):

The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

What One way he decided that this can be achieved is to write something. Anything. Just something. And, here is the kicker, you have to share that with people. In doing so, you contribute something to people. What that is, I've yet to figure out, but here I am. I am writing something. Contributing a verse to the powerful play.

I don't know what I expect to contribute to "society" (or the dozen or so people who will take the time to read this) with my reflections. Dr. Gawande's guidelines were simply that "it need only add some small observation about your world." I have observations, and I have a computer, so I thought I could start there.

When we contribute a verse to the powerful play need it only be a one-way street? Perhaps more importantly, should it not necessarily be a two-way street? What I mean by that is that I think when we do our "thing" for the world, it should make us happy in return. In my previous life as an engineer I did some awesome work, stuff that I am proud of, but that ultimately left me wondering if it mattered at all. Lets face it, does anyone out there know anyone whose life will be affected in the least if the Next Generation Hubble Telescope doesn't launch? I don't have an answer for that question, but its once that has occurred to me on occasion.

Shall we see where this takes us?